GIFT  OF 
A.   P.   Morrison 


LIBRARY 
SCHOOL 


BY   EUGENE   FIELD 


Secono  JBoofc  of  Uales. 

Songs  ano  ©tber  Deree. 

"Cbe  Ibols  Gross  ano  ©tber  Uales. 

"Cbe  Ifoouse. 

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love  Songs  of  Gbiloboofc. 
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Songs  of  Cbil&booo. 

Verses  by  EUGENE  FIELD.     Music  by  REGINALD 
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lote 

OF 

A  BIBLIOMANIAC 


Lobe 


OF 


A  BIBLIOMANIAC 


BY 

EUGENE    FIELD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1896 


F- 

LIBRARY 
SCHOOL 


igli  x8qb 

£y  JLL/A  SUTHERLAND  FIELD 

GIFT    OF 
A. P.  Wom son 


Sfntrotwction 


THE  determination  to  found  a  story  or  a 
series  of  sketches  on  the  delights,  adventures, 
and  misadventures  connected  with  biblio 
mania  did  not  come  impulsively  to  my  bro 
ther.  For  many  years,  in  short  during  the 
greater  part  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
of  journalistic  work,  he  had  celebrated  in 
prose  and  verse,  and  always  in  his  happiest 
and  most  delightful  vein,  the  pleasures  of 
book-hunting.  Himself  an  indefatigable  col 
lector  of  books,  the  possessor  of  a  library  as 
valuable  as  it  was  interesting,  a  library  con 
taining  volumes  obtained  only  at  the  cost  of 
great  personal  sacrifice,  he  was  jn  the  most 
active  sympathy  with  the  disease  called  bi 
bliomania,  and  knew,  as  few  comparatively 
poor  men  have  known,  the  half-pathetic, 
half-humorous  side  of  that  incurable  mental 
infirmity. 

The  newspaper  column,  to  which  he  con- 


M103540 


INTRODUCTION 

tributed  almost  daily  for  twelve  years,  com 
prehended  many  sly  digs  and  gentle  scoffings 
at  those  of  his  unhappy  fellow  citizens  who 
became  notorious,  through  his  instrumen 
tality,  in  their  devotion  to  old  book-shelves 
and  auction  sales.  And  all  the  time  none 
was  more  assiduous  than  this  same  good- 
natured  cynic  in  running  down  a  musty 
prize,  no  matter  what  its  cost  or  what  the 
attending  difficulties.  "I  save  others,  my 
self  I  cannot  save,"  was  his  humorous  cry. 
In  his  published  writings  are  many  evi 
dences  of  my  brother's  appreciation  of  what 
he  has  somewhere  characterized  the  "sooth 
ing  affliction  of  bibliomania."  Nothing  of 
book-hunting  love  has  been  more  happily  ex 
pressed  than  "The  Bibliomaniac's  Prayer," 
in  which  the  troubled  petitioner  fervently 
asserts: 

"  But  if,  O  Lord,  it  pleaseth  Thee 
To  keep  me  in  temptation's  way, 
I  humbly  ask  that  I  may  be 
Most  notably  beset  to-day  ; 
Let  my  temptation  be  a  book, 
Which  I  shall  purchase,  hold  and  keep, 
Whereon,  when  other  men  shall  look, 
They  '11  wail  to  know  I  got  it  cheap." 


\ 


INTRODUCTION 

And  again,  in  "  The  Bibliomaniac's  Bride, " 
nothing  breathes  better  the  spirit  of  the  in 
curable  patient  than  this : 

"  Prose  for  me  when  I  wished  for  prose, 
Verse  when  to  verse  inclined, — 
Forever  bringing  sweet  repose 
To  body,  heart  and  mind. 
Oh,  I  should  bind  this  priceless  prize 
In  bindings  full  and  fine, 
And  keep  her  where  no  human  eyes 
Should  see  her  charms,  but  mine  !  " 

In  "Dear  Old  London"  the  poet  wailed 
that  "a  splendid  Horace  cheap  for  cash" 
laughed  at  his  poverty,  and  in  "  Dibdin's 
Ghost "  he  revelled  in  the  delights  that  await 
the  bibliomaniac  in  the  future  state,  where 
there  is  no  admission  to  the  women  folk 
who,  "wanting  victuals,  make  a  fuss  if  we 
buy  books  instead  ";  while  in  "  Flail,  Trask 
and.Bisland"  is  the  very  essence  of  biblio 
mania,  the  unquenchable  thirst  for  posses 
sion.  And  yet,  despite  these  self-accusa 
tions,  bibliophily  rather  than  bibliomania 
would  be  the  word  to  characterize  his  con 
scientious  purpose.  If  he  purchased  quaint 
and  rare  books  it  was  to  own  them  to  the 


INTRODUCTION 

full  extent,  inwardly  as  well  as  outwardly. 
The  mania  for  books  kept  him  continually 
buying;  the  love  of  books  supervened  to 
make  them  a  part  of  himself  and  his  life. 

Toward  the  close  of  August  of  the  present 
year  my  brother  wrote  the  first  chapter  of 
"The  Love  Affairs  of  a  Bibliomaniac."  At 
that  time  he  was  in  an  exhausted  physical 
condition  and  apparently  unfit  for  any  pro 
tracted  literary  labor.  But  the  prospect  of 
gratifying  a  long-cherished  ambition,  the  de 
light  of  beginning  the  story  he  had  planned 
so  hopefully,  seemed  to  give  him  new 
strength,  and  he  threw  himself  into  the  work 
with  an  enthusiasm  that  was,  alas,  mislead 
ing  to  those  who  had  noted  fearfully  his 
declining  vigor  of  body.  For  years  no  lit 
erary  occupation  had  seemed  to  give  him 
equal  pleasure,  and  in  the  discussion  of  the 
progress  of  his  writing  from  day  to  day  his 
eye  would  brighten,  all  of  his  old  animation 
would  return,  and  everything  would  betray 
the  lively  interest  he  felt  in  the  creature  of 
his  imagination  in  whom  he  was  living  over 
the  delights  of  the  book-hunter's  chase.  It 
was  his  ardent  wish  that  this  work,  for  the 
viii 


INTRODUCTION 

fulfilment  of  which  he  had  been  so  long  pre 
paring,  should  be,  as  he  playfully  expressed 
it,  a  monument  of  apologetic  compensation 
to  a  class  of  people  he  had  so  humorously 
maligned,  and  those  who  knew  him  inti 
mately  will  recognize  in  the  shortcomings 
of  the  bibliomaniac  the  humble  confession 
of  his  own  weaknesses. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  undertaking  that  it  was  prac 
tically  limitless;  that  a  bibliomaniac  of  so 
many  years'  experience  could  prattle  on  in 
definitely  concerning  his  "love  affairs,"  and 
at  the  same  time  be  in  no  danger  of  repeti 
tion.  Indeed  my  brother's  plans  at  the  out 
set  were  not  definitely  formed.  He  would 
say,  when  questioned  or  joked  about  these 
amours,  that  he  was  in  the  easy  position  of 
Sam  Weller  when  he  indited  his  famous 
valentine,  and  could  "pull  up"  at  any  mo 
ment.  One  week  he  would  contend  that  a 
book-hunter  ought  to  be  good  for  a  year  at 
least,  and  the  next  week  he  would  argue  as 
strongly  that  it  was  time  to  send  the  old 
man  into  winter  quarters  and  go  to  press. 
But  though  the  approach  of  cold  weather 


INTRODUCTION 

increased  his  physical  indisposition,  he  was 
not  the  less  interested  in  his  prescribed  hours 
of  labor,  howbeit  his  weakness  warned  him 
that  he  should  say  to  his  book,  as  his  much- 
loved  Horace  had  written : 

"  Fuge  quo  descendere  gestis: 
Non  erit  emisso  reditus  tibi." 

Was  it  strange  that  his  heart  should  re 
lent,  and  that  he  should  write  on,  unwilling 
to  give  the  word  of  dismissal  to  the  book 
whose  preparation  had  been  a  work  of  such 
love  and  solace  ? 

During  the  afternoon  of  Saturday,  Novem 
ber  2,  the  nineteenth  instalment  of  "  The 
Love  Affairs  "  was  written.  It  was  the  con 
clusion  of  his  literary  life.  The  verses  sup- 
posably  contributed  by  Judge  Methuen's 
friend,  with  which  the  chapter  ends,  were 
the  last  words  written  by  Eugene  Field. 
He  was  at  that  time  apparently  quite  as  well 
as  on  any  day  during  the  fall  months,  and 
neither  he  nor  any  member  of  his  family 
had  the  slightest  premonition  that  death 
was  hovering  about  the  household.  The 
next  day,  though  still  feeling  indisposed,  he 


INTRODUCTION 

was  at  times  up  and  about,  always  cheer 
ful  and  full  of  that  sweetness  and  sunshine 
which,  in  his  last  years,  seem  now  to  have 
been  the  preparation  for  the  life  beyond. 
He  spoke  of  the  chapter  he  had  written  the 
day  before,  and  it  was  then  that  he  outlined 
his  plan  of  completing  the  work.  One 
chapter  only  remained  to  be  written,  and  it 
was  to  chronicle  the  death  of  the  old  biblio 
maniac,  but  not  until  he  had  unexpectedly 
fallen  heir  to  a  very  rare  and  almost  priceless 
copy  of  Horace,  which  acquisition  marked 
the  pinnacle  of  the  book-hunter's  conquest. 
True  to  his  love  for  the  Sabine  singer,  the 
western  poet  characterized  the  immortal 
odes  of  twenty  centuries  gone  the  greatest 
happiness  of  bibliomania. 

In  the  early  morning  of  November  4  the 
soul  of  Eugene  Field  passed  upward.  On 
the  table,  folded  and  sealed,  were  the  mem 
oirs  of  the  old  man  upon  whom  the  sentence 
of  death  had  been  pronounced.  On  the 
bed  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  with  one 
arm  thrown  over  his  breast,  and  the  smile 
of  peace  and  rest  on  his  tranquil  face,  the 
poet  lay.  All  around  him,  on  the  shelves 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

and  in  the  cases,  were  the  books  he  loved  so 
well.  Ah,  who  shall  say  that  on  that  morn 
ing  his  fancy  was  not  verified,  and  that  as 
the  gray  light  came  reverently  through  the 
window,  those  cherished  volumes  did  not 
bestir  themselves,  awaiting  the  cheery  voice : 
' '  Good  day  to  you,  my  sweet  friends.  How 
lovingly  they  beam  upon  me,  and  how 
glad  they  are  that  my  rest  has  been  un 
broken." 

Could  they  beam  upon  you  less  lovingly, 
great  heart,  in  the  chamber  warmed  by  your 
affection  and  now  sanctified  by  death  ?  Were 
they  less  glad  to  know  that  the  repose  would 
be  unbroken  forevermore,  since  it  came  the 
glorious  reward,  my  brother,  of  the  friend 
who  went  gladly  to  it  through  his  faith, 
having  striven  for  it  through  his  works  ? 

ROSWELL  MARTIN  FIELD. 

Buena  ParK,  December,  1895. 


XII 


€tje  Chapters  in  tljis?  315oofe 

PAGE 

MY  FIRST  LOVE 3 

THE  BIRTH  OF  A  NEW  PASSION 15 

THE  LUXURY  OF  READING  IN  BED 29 

THE  MANIA  OF  COLLECTING  SEIZES  ME     ...    43 

BALDNESS  AND  INTELLECTUALITY 55 

MY  ROMANCE  WITH  FIAMMETTA    ......    67 

THE  DELIGHTS  OF  FENDER -FISHING 79 

BALLADS  AND  THEIR  MAKERS 93 

BOOKSELLERS  AND  PRINTERS,  OLD  AND  NEW  .  .  107 
WHEN  FANCHONETTE  BEWITCHED  ME  .  .  .  .121 
DIAGNOSIS  OF  THE  BACILLUS  LIBRORUM  .  .  .135 
THE  PLEASURES  OF  EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION  .  .  .149 
ON  THE  ODORS  WHICH  MY  BOOKS  EXHALE  .  .  163 
ELZEVIRS  AND  DIVERS  OTHER  MATTERS  .  .  .175 
A  BOOK  THAT  BRINGS  SOLACE  AND  CHEER  .  .  189 

THE  MALADY  CALLED  CATALOGITIS 203 

THE  NAPOLEONIC  RENAISSANCE 217 

MY  WORKSHOP  AND  OTHERS 229 

OUR  DEBT  TO  MONKISH  MEN 243 

xiii 


f  trjst  flctoe 
* 


I 

MY    FIRST    LOVE 

A  this  moment,  when  I  am  about  to 
begin  the  most  important  undertak 
ing  of  my  life,  I  recall  the  sense  of  abhor 
rence  with  which  I  have  at  different  times 
read  the  confessions  of  men  famed  for 
their  prowess  in  the  realm  of  love.  These 
boastings  have  always  shocked  me,  for  I 
reverence  love  as  the  noblest  of  the  pas 
sions,  and  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  conceive 
how  one  who  has  truly  fallen  victim  to  its 
benign  influence  can  ever  thereafter  speak 
flippantly  of  it. 

Yet  there  have  been,  and  there  still  are, 
many  who  take  a  seeming  delight  in  telling 
you  how  many  conquests  they  have  made, 
and  they  not  infrequently  have  the  bad  taste 
to  explain  with  wearisome  prolixity  the 
ways  and  the  means  whereby  those  con- 

3 


-  ;    THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

quests  were  wrought;  as,  forsooth,  an  un 
feeling  hantsnian  is  forever  boasting  of  the 
game  he  has  slaughtered  and  is  forever 
dilating  upon  the  repulsive  details  of  his 
butcheries. 

I  have  always  contended  that  one  who 
is  in  love  (and  having  once  been  in  love  is 
to  be  always  in  love)  has,  actually,  no  con 
fession  to  make.  Love  is  so  guileless,  so 
proper,  so  pure  a  passion  as  to  involve  none 
of  those  things  which  require  or  which  ad 
mit  of  confession.  He,  therefore,  who  sur 
mises  that  in  this  exposition  of  my  affaires 
du  coeur  there  is  to  be  any  betrayal  of  con 
fidences,  or  any  discussion,  suggestion,  or 
hint  likely  either  to  shame  love  or  its  vo 
taries  or  to  bring  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  the 
fastidious  —  he  is  grievously  in  error. 

Nor  am  I  going  to  boast;  for  I  have  made 
no  conquests.  I  am  in  no  sense  a  hero. 
For  many,  very  many  years  I  have  walked 
in  a  pleasant  garden,  enjoying  sweet  odors 
and  soothing  spectacles;  no  predetermined 
itinerary  has  controlled  my  course;  I  have 
wandered  whither  I  pleased,  and  very  many 
times  I  have  strayed  so  far  into  the  tangle- 

4 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

wood  and  thickets  as  almost  to  have  lost 
my  way.  And  now  it  is  my  purpose  to 
walk  that  pleasant  garden  once  more,  in 
viting  you  to  bear  me  company  and  to 
share  with  me  what  satisfaction  may  accrue 
from  an  old  man's  return  to  old-time  places 
and  old-time  loves. 

As  a  child  I  was  serious-minded.  I  cared 
little  for  those  sports  which  usually  excite 
the  ardor  of  youth.  To  out-of-door  games 
and  exercises  I  had  particular  aversion.  I 
was  born  in  a  southern  latitude,  but  at  the 
age  of  six  years  I  went  to  live  with  my 
grandmother  in  New  Hampshire,  both  my 
parents  having  fallen  victims  to  the  cholera. 
This  change  from  the  balmy  temperature  of 
the  South  to  the  rigors  of  the  North  was  not 
agreeable  to  me,  and  I  have  always  held  it 
responsible  for  that  delicate  health  which 
has  attended  me  through  life. 

My  grandmother  encouraged  my  disin 
clination  to  play ;  she  recognized  in  me  that 
certain  seriousness  of  mind  which  I  remem 
ber  to  have  heard  her  say  I  inherited  from 
her,  and  she  determined  to  make  of  me 
what  she  had  failed  to  make  of  any  of  her 
5 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

own  sons  —  a  professional  expounder  of  the 
only  true  faith  of  Congregationalism.  For 
this  reason,  and  for  the  further  reason  that 
at  the  tender  age  of  seven  years  I  publicly 
avowed  my  desire  to  become  a  clergyman, 
an  ambition  wholly  sincere  at  that  time  — 
for  these  reasons  was  I  duly  installed  as 
prime  favorite  in  my  grandmother's  affec 
tions. 

As  distinctly  as  though  it  were  but  yes 
terday  do  I  recall  the  time  when  I  met  my 
first  love.  It  was  in  the  front  room  of  the 
old  homestead,  and  the  day  was  a  day  in 
spring.  The  front  room  answered  those 
purposes  which  are  served  by  the  so-called 
parlor  of  the  present  time.  I  remember  the 
low  ceiling,  the  big  fireplace,  the  long, 
broad  mantelpiece,  the  andirons  and  fender 
of  brass,  the  tall  clock  with  its  jocund  and 
roseate  moon,  the  bellows  that  was  always 
wheezy,  the  wax  flowers  under  a  glass 
globe  in  the  corner,  an  allegorical  picture 
of  Solomon's  temple,  another  picture  of  lit 
tle  Samuel  at  prayer,  the  high,  stiff-back 
chairs,  the  foot-stool  with  its  gayly  embroid 
ered  top,  the  mirror  in  its  gilt-and-black 
6 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

frame  —  all  these  things  I  remember  well, 
and  with  feelings  of  tender  reverence,  and 
yet  that  day  1  now  recall  was  well-nigh 
threescore  and  ten  years  ago! 

Best  of  all  I  remember  the  case  in  which 
my  grandmother  kept  her  books,  a  mahog 
any  structure,  massive  and'  dark,  with  doors 
composed  of  diamond-shaped  figures  of 
glass  cunningly  set  in  a  framework  of  lead. 
I  was  in  my  seventh  year  then,  and  I  had 
learned  to  read  I  know  not  when.  The 
back  and  current  numbers  of  the  "Well- 
Spring  "  had  fallen  prey  to  my  insatiable 
appetite  for  literature.  With  the  story  of 
the  small  boy  who  stole  a  pin,  repented  of 
and  confessed  that  crime,  and  then  became 
a  good  and  great  man,  1  was  as  familiar  as 
if  I  myself  had  invented  that  ingenious  and 
instructive  tale;  I  could  lisp  the  moral  num 
bers  of  Watts  and  the  didactic  hymns  of 
Wesley,  and  the  annual  reports  of  the  Amer 
ican  Tract  Society  had  already  revealed  to 
me  the  sphere  of  usefulness  in  which  my 
grandmother  hoped  I  would  ultimately  fig 
ure  with  discretion  and  zeal.  And  yet  my 
heart  was  free;  wholly  untouched  of  that 

7 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

gentle  yet  deathless  passion  which  was  to 
become  my  delight,  my  inspiration,  and  my 
solace,  it  awaited  the  coming  of  its  first  love. 

Upon  one  of  those  shelves  yonder  —  it  is 
the  third  shelf  from  the  top,  fourth  compart 
ment  to  the  right — is  that  old  copy  of  the 
''New England  Primer, "a curious  little, thin, 
square  book  in  faded  blue  board  covers.  A 
good  many  times  I  have  wondered  whether 
I  ought  not  to  have  the  precious  little  thing 
sumptuously  attired  in  the  finest  style  known 
to  my  binder;  indeed,  I  have  often  been 
tempted  to  exchange  the  homely  blue  board 
covers  for  flexible  levant,  for  it  occurred  to 
me  that  in  this  way  I  could  testify  to  my  re 
gard  for  the  treasured  volume.  I  spoke  of 
this  one  day  to  my  friend  Judge  Methuen, 
for  I  have  great  respect  for  his  judgment. 

"It  would  be  a  desecration,"  said  he,  "to 
deprive  the  book  of  its  original  binding. 
What!  Would  you  tear  off  and  cast  away 
the  covers  which  have  felt  the  caressing 
pressure  of  the  hands  of  those  whose  mem 
ory  you  revere  ?  The  most  sacred  of  senti 
ments  should  forbid  that  act  of  vandalism !  " 

Ineverthinkorspeakofthe  "New England 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Primer "  that  1  do  not  recall  Captivity  Waite, 
for  it  was  Captivity  who  introduced  me  to 
the  Primer  that  day  in  the  springtime  of 
sixty-three  years  ago.  She  was  of  my  age, 
a  bright,  pretty  girl  —  a  very  pretty,  an  ex 
ceptionally  pretty  girl,  as  girls  go.  We  be 
longed  to  the  same  Sunday-school  class.  1 
remember  that  upon  this  particular  day  she 
brought  me  a  russet  apple.  It  was  she  who 
discovered  the  Primer  in  the  mahogany  case, 
and  what  was  not  our  joy  as  we  turned  over 
the  tiny  pages  together  and  feasted  our  eyes 
upon  the  vivid  pictures  and  perused  the  ab 
sorbingly  interesting  text!  What  wonder 
that  together  we  wept  tears  of  sympathy 
at  the  harrowing  recital  of  the  fate  of  John 
Rogers ! 

Even  at  this  remote  date  I  cannot  recall 
that  experience  with  Captivity,  involving 
as  it  did  the  wood-cut  representing  the  un 
fortunate  Rogers  standing  in  an  impossible 
bonfire  and  being  consumed  thereby  in  the 
presence  of  his  wife  and  their  numerous 
progeny,  strung  along  in  a  pitiful  line  across 
the  picture  for  artistic  effect  —  even  now,  I 
say,  I  cannot  contemplate  that  experience 
9 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

and  that  wood-cut  without  feeling  lumpy  in 
my  throat  and  moist  about  my  eyes. 

How  lasting  are  the  impressions  made 
upon  the  youthful  mind !  Through  the  many 
busy  years  that  have  elapsed  since  first  I 
tasted  the  thrilling  sweets  of  that  miniature 
Primer  I  have  not  forgotten  that  "young 
Obadias,  David,  Josias,  all  were  pious  " ;  that 
"Zaccheus  he  did  climb  the  Tree  our  Lord 
to  see";  and  that  "  Vashti  for  Pride  was  set 
aside";  and  still  with  many  a  sympathetic 
shudder  and  tingle  do  I  recall  Captivity's 
overpowering  sense  of  horror,  and  mine,  as 
we  lingered  long  over  the  portraitures  of 
Timothy  flying  from  Sin,  of  Xerxes  laid  out 
in  funeral  garb,  and  of  proud  Koran's  troop 
partly  submerged. 

My  Book  and  Heart 
Must  never  part. 

So  runs  one  of  the  couplets  in  this  little 
Primer-book,  and  right  truly  can  I  say  that 
from  the  springtime  day  sixty-odd  years  ago, 
when  first  my  heart  went  out  in  love  to  this 
little  book,  no  change  of  scene  or  of  custom, 

10 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

no  allurement  of  fashion,  no  demand  of  ma 
ture  years,  has  abated  that  love.  And  herein 
is  exemplified  the  advantage  which  the  love 
of  books  has  over  the  other  kinds  of  love. 
Women  are  by  nature  fickle,  and  so  are  men ; 
their  friendships  are  liable  to  dissipation  at 
the  merest  provocation  or  the  slightest  pre 
text. 

Not  so,  however,  with  books,  for  books 
cannot  change.  A  thousand  years  hence 
they  are  what  you  find  them  to-day,  speak 
ing  the  same  words,  holding  forth  the  same 
cheer,  the  same  promise,  the  same  comfort; 
always  constant,  laughing  with  those  who 
laugh  and  weeping  with  those  who  weep. 

Captivity  Waite  was  an  exception  to  the 
rule  governing  her  sex.  In  all  candor  I  must 
say  that  she  approached  closely  to  a  realization 
of  the  ideals  of  a  book  —  a  sixteenmo,  if  you 
please,  fair  to  look  upon,  of  clear,  clean  type, 
well  ordered  and  well  edited,  amply  mar 
gined,  neatly  bound;  a  human  book  whose 
text,  as  represented  by  her  disposition  and 
her  mind,  corresponded  felicitously  with  the 
comeliness  of  her  exterior.  This  child  was 
the  great-great-granddaughter  of  Benjamin 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Waite,  whose  family  was  carried  off  by  In 
dians  in  1677.  Benjamin  followed  the  party 
to  Canada,  and  after  many  months  of  search 
found  and  ransomed  the  captives. 

The  historian  has  properly  said  that  the 
names  of  Benjamin  Waite  and  his  companion 
in  their  perilous  journey  through  the  wilder 
ness  to  Canada  should  ''be  memorable  in 
all  the  sad  or  happy  homes  of  this  Connecti 
cut  valley  forever. "  The  child  who  was  my 
friend  in  youth,  and  to  whom  I  may  allude 
occasionally  hereafter  in  my  narrative,  bore 
the  name  of  one  of  the  survivors  of  this  In 
dian  outrage,  a  name  to  be  revered  as  a  re 
membrancer  of  sacrifice  and  heroism. 


12 


* 
of  a  |5cto 

* 


II 

THE   BIRTH   OF  A  NEW   PASSION 

WHEN  I  was  thirteen  years  old  I  went 
to  visit  my  Uncle  Cephas.  My 
grandmother  would  not  have  parted  with 
me  even  for  that  fortnight  had  she  not  ac 
tually  been  compelled  to.  It  happened  that 
she  was  called  to  a  meeting  of  the  American 
Tract  Society,  and  it  was  her  intention  to 
pay  a  visit  to  her  cousin,  Royall  Eastman, 
after  she  had  discharged  the  first  and  im 
perative  duty  she  owed  the  society.  Mrs. 
Deacon  Ranney  was  to  have  taken  me  and 
provided  for  my  temporal  and  spiritual 
wants  during  grandmother's  absence,  but 
at  the  last  moment  the  deacon  came  down 
with  one  of  his  spells  of  quinsy,  and  no  other 
alternative  remained  but  to  pack  me  off  to 
Nashua,  where  my  Uncle  Cephas  lived. 
This  involved  considerable  expense,  for 
15 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

the  stage  fare  was  three  shillings  each  way ; 
it  came  particularly  hard  on  grandmother, 
inasmuch  as  she  had  just  paid  her  road  tax 
and  had  not  yet  received  her  semi-annual 
dividends  on  her  Fitchburg  Railway  stock. 
Indifferent,  however,  to  every  sense  of  ex 
travagance  and  to  all  other  considerations 
except  those  of  personal  pride,  I  rode  away 
atop  of  the  stage-coach,  full  of  exultation. 
As  we  rattled  past  the  Waite  house  I  waved 
my  cap  to  Captivity  and  indulged  in  the 
pleasing  hope  that  she  would  be  lonesome 
without  me.  Much  of  the  satisfaction  of 
going  away  arises  from  the  thought  that 
those  you  leave  behind  are  likely  to  be 
wretchedly  miserable  during  your  absence. 
My  Uncle  Cephas  lived  in  a  house  so  very 
different  from  my  grandmother's  that  it  took 
me  some  time  to  get  used  to  the  place. 
Uncle  Cephas  was  a  lawyer,  and  his  style  of 
living  was  not  at  all  like  grandmother's;  he 
was  to  have  been  a  minister,  but  at  twelve 
years  of  age  he  attended  the  county  fair,  and 
that  incident  seemed  to  change  the  whole 
bent  of  his  life.  At  twenty-one  he  married 
Samantha  Talbott,  and  that  was  another 
16 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

blow  to  grandmother,  who  always  declared 
that  the  Talbotts  were  a  shiftless  lot.  How 
ever,  I  was  agreeably  impressed  with  Uncle 
Cephas  and  Aunt  'Manthy,  for  they  wel 
comed  me  very  cordially  and  turned  me 
over  to  my  little  cousins,  Mary  and  Henry, 
and  bade  us  three  make  merry  to  the  best 
of  our  ability.  These  first  favorable  impres 
sions  of  my  uncle's  family  were  confirmed 
when  I  discovered  that  for  supper  we  had 
hot  biscuit  and  dried  beef  warmed  up  in 
cream  gravy,  a  diet  which,  with  all  due  re- 
spiect  to  grandmother,  I  considered  much 
more  desirable  than  dry  bread  and  dried- 
apple  sauce. 

Aha,  old  Crusoe!  I  see  thee  now  in  yon 
der  case  smiling  out  upon  me  as  cheerily  as 
thou  didst  smile  those  many  years  ago  when 
to  a  little  boy  thou  broughtest  the  message 
of  Romance!  And  I  do  love  thee  still,  and 
I  shall  always  love  thee,  not  only  for  thy 
benefaction  in  those  ancient  days,  but  also 
for  the  light  and  the  cheer  which  thy  genius 
brings  to  all  ages  and  conditions  of  humanity. 

My  Uncle  Cephas's  library  was  stored  with 
a  large  variety  of  pleasing  literature.  I  did 

17 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

not  observe  a  glut  of  theological  publications, 
and  I  will  admit  that  I  felt  somewhat  ag 
grieved  personally  when,  in  answer  to  my 
inquiry,  I  was  told  that  there  was  no  "New 
England  Primer  "  in  the  collection.  But  this 
feeling  was  soon  dissipated  by  the  absorbing 
interest  I  took  in  De  Foe's  masterpiece,  a 
work  unparalleled  in  the  realm  of  fiction. 

I  shall  not  say  that  "Robinson  Crusoe" 
supplanted  the  Primer  in  my  affections;  this 
would  not  be  true.  I  prefer  to  say  what  is 
the  truth;  it  was  my  second  love.  Here 
again  we  behold  another  advantage  which 
the  lover  of  books  has  over  the  lover  of  wo 
men.  If  he  be  a  genuine  lover  he  can  and 
should  love  any  number  of  books,  and  this 
polybibliophily  is  not  to  the  disparagement 
of  any  one  of  that  number.  But  it  is  held  by 
the  expounders  of  our  civil  and  our  moral 
laws  that  he  who  loveth  one  woman  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  women  speaketh  by 
that  action  the  best  and  highest  praise  both 
of  his  own  sex  and  of  hers. 

I  thank  God  continually  that  it  hath  been 
my  lot  in  life  to  found  an  empire  in  my  heart 
—  no  cramped  and  wizened  borough  wherein 
18 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

one  jealous  mistress  hath  exercised  her  petty 
tyranny,  but  an  expansive  and  ever-widen 
ing  continent  divided  and  subdivided  into  do 
minions,  jurisdictions,  caliphates,  chiefdoms, 
seneschalships,  and  prefectures,  wherein 
tetrarchs,  burgraves,  maharajahs,  palatines, 
seigniors,  caziques,  nabobs,  emirs,  nizams, 
and  nawabs  hold  sway,  each  over  his  special 
and  particular  realm,  and  all  bound  together 
in  harmonious  cooperation  by  the  conciliat 
ing  spirit  of  polybibliophily! 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood;  for  I  am 
not  a  woman-hater.  I  do  not  regret  the  ac 
quaintances —  nay,  the  friendships  —  I  have 
formed  with  individuals  of  the  other  sex. 
As  a  philosopher  it  has  behooved  me  to  study 
womankind,  else  I  should  not  have  appreci 
ated  the  worth  of  these  other  better  loves. 
Moreover,  I  take  pleasure  in  my  age  in  as 
sociating  this  precious  volume  or  that  with 
one  woman  or  another  whose  friendship 
came  into  my  life  at  the  time  when  I  was 
reading  and  loved  that  book. 

The  other  day  I  found  my  nephew  Wil 
liam  swinging  in  the  hammock  on  the  porch 
with  his  girl  friend  Celia;  I  saw  that  the 
19 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

young  people  were  reading  Ovid.  "My 
children,"  said  I,  "count  this  day  a  happy 
one.  In  the  years  of  after  life  neither  of  you 
will  speak  or  think  of  Ovid  and  his  tender 
verses  without  recalling  at  the  same  moment 
how  of  a  gracious  afternoon  in  distant  time 
you  sat  side  by  side  contemplating  the  in 
effably  precious  promises  of  maturity  and 
love." 

I  am  not  sure  that  I  do  not  approve  that 
article  in  Judge  Methuen's  creed  which  in 
sists  that  in  this  life  of  ours  woman  serves  a 
probationary  period  for  sins  of  omission  or 
of  commission  in  a  previous  existence,  and 
that  woman's  next  step  upward  toward  the 
final  eternity  of  bliss  is  a  period  of  longer  or 
of  shorter  duration,  in  which  her  soul  enters 
into  a  book  to  be  petted,  fondled,  beloved 
and  cherished  by  some  good  man  —  like  the 
Judge,  or  like  myself,  for  that  matter. 

This  theory  is  not  an  unpleasant  one;  I  re 
gard  it  as  much  more  acceptable  than  those 
so-called  scientific  demonstrations  which 
would  make  us  suppose  that  we  are  de 
scended  from  tree-climbing  and  bug-eating 
simians.  However,  it  is  far  from  my  pur- 

20 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

pose  to  enter  upon  any  argument  of  these 
questions  at  this  time,  for  Judge  Methuen 
himself  is  going  to  write  a  book  upon  the 
subject,  and  the  edition  is  to  be  limited  to 
two  numbered  and  signed  copies  upon  Jap 
anese  vellum,  of  which  I  am  to  have  one 
and  the  Judge  the  other. 

The  impression  I  made  upon  Uncle  Ce 
phas  must  have  been  favorable,  for  when 
my  next  birthday  rolled  around  there  came 
with  it  a  book  from  Uncle  Cephas  —  my 
third  love,  Grimm's  "Household  Stories." 
With  the  perusal  of  this  monumental  work 
was  born  that  passion  for  fairy  tales  and  folk 
lore  which  increased  rather  than  diminished 
with  my  maturer  years.  Even  at  the  pres 
ent  time  I  delight  in  a  good  fairy  story,  and 
I  am  grateful  to  Lang  and  to  Jacobs  for  the 
benefit  they  have  conferred  upon  me  and 
the  rest  of  English-reading  humanity  through 
the  medium  of  the  fairy  books  and  the  folk 
tales  they  have  translated  and  compiled. 
Baring-Gould  and  Lady  Wilde  have  done 
noble  work  in  the  same  realm ;  the  writings 
of  the  former  have  interested  me  particularly, 
for  together  with  profound  learning  in  di- 

21 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

rections  which  are  specially  pleasing  to  me, 
Baring-Gould  has  a  distinct  literary  touch 
which  invests  his  work  with  a  grace  inde 
finable  but  delicious  and  persuasive. 

I  am  so  great  a  lover  of  and  believer  in 
fairy  tales  that  I  once  organized  a  society  for 
the  dissemination  of  fairy  literature,  and  at 
the  first  meeting  of  this  society  we  resolved 
to  demand  of  the  board  of  education  to  drop 
mathematics  from  the  curriculum  in  the  pub 
lic  schools  and  to  substitute  therefor  a  four 
years'  course  in  fairy  literature,  to  be  fol 
lowed,  if  the  pupil  desired,  by  a  post-grad 
uate  course  in  demonology  and  folk-lore. 
We  hired  and  fitted  up  large  rooms,  and  the 
cause  seemed  to  be  flourishing  until  the 
second  month's  rent  fell  due.  It  was  then 
discovered  that  the  treasury  was  empty;  and 
with  this  discovery  the  society  ended  its 
existence,  without  having  accomplished  any 
tangible  result  other  than  the  purchase  of  a 
number  of  sofas  and  chairs,  for  which  Judge 
Methuen  and  I  had  to  pay. 

Still,  I  am  of  the  opinion  (and  Judge  Me 
thuen  indorses  it)  that  we  need  in  this  coun 
try  of  ours  just  that  influence  which  the 

22 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

fairy  tale  exerts.  We  are  becoming  too  prac 
tical;  the  lust  for  material  gain  is  throttling 
every  other  consideration.  Our  babes  and 
sucklings  are  no  longer  regaled  with  the 
soothing  tales  of  giants,  ogres,  witches,  and 
fairies;  their  hungry,  receptive  minds  are 
filled  with  stones  about  the  pursuit  and 
slaughter  of  unoffending  animals,  of  war  and 
of  murder,  and  of  those  questionable  practices 
whereby  a  hero  is  enriched  and  others  are 
impoverished.  Before  he  is  out  of  his  swad- 
dling-cloth  the  modern  youngster  is  con 
vinced  that  the  one  noble  purpose  in  life  is 
to  get,  get,  get,  and  keep  on  getting  of 
worldly  material.  The  fairy  tale  is  tabooed 
because,  as  the  sordid  parent  alleges,  it 
makes  youth  unpractical. 

One  consequence  of  this  deplorable  con 
dition  is,  as  I  have  noticed  (and  as  Judge 
Methuen  has,  too),  that  the  human  eye  is 
diminishing  in  size  and  fulness,  and  is  los 
ing  its  lustre.  By  as  much  as  you  take  the 
God-given  grace  of  fancy  from  man,  by  so 
much  do  you  impoverish  his  eyes.  The  eye 
is  so  beautiful  and  serves  so  very  many  no 
ble  purposes,  and  is,  too,  so  ready  in  the 
23 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

expression  of  tenderness,  of  pity,  of  love,  of 
solicitude,  of  compassion,  of  dignity,  of  every 
gentle  mood  and  noble  inspiration,  that  in 
that  metaphor  which  contemplates  the  eter 
nal  vigilance  of  the  Almighty  we  recognize 
the  best  poetic  expression  of  the  highest 
human  wisdom. 

My  nephew  Timothy  has  three  children, 
two  boys  and  a  girl.  The  elder  boy  and 
the  girl  have  small  black  eyes;  they  are  as 
devoid  of  fancy  as  a  napkin  is  of  red  corpus 
cles;  they  put  their  pennies  into  a  tin  bank, 
and  they  have  won  all  the  marbles  and  jack- 
stones  in  the  neighborhood.  They  do  not 
believe  in  Santa  Glaus  or  in  fairies  or  in 
witches;  they  know  that  two  nickels  make 
a  dime,  and  their  golden  rule  is  to  do  others 
as  others  would  do  them.  The  other  boy  (he 
has  been  christened  Matthew,  after  me)  has  a 
pair  of  large,  round,  deep-blue  eyes,  expres 
sive  of  all  those  emotions  which  a  keen, 
active  fancy  begets. 

Matthew  can  never  get  his  fill  of  fairy  tales, 

and  how  the  dear  little  fellow  loves  Santa 

Glaus!     He  sees  things  at  night;  he  will  not 

go  to  bed  in  the  dark;  he  hears  and  under- 

24 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

stands  what  the  birds  and  crickets  say,  and 
what  the  night  wind  sings,  and  what  the 
rustling  leaves  tell.  Wherever  Matthew  goes 
he  sees  beautiful  pictures  and  hears  sweet 
music;  to  his  impressionable  soul  all  nature 
speaks  its  wisdom  and  its  poetry.  God! 
how  I  love  that  boy!  And  he  shall  never 
starve !  A  goodly  share  of  what  I  have  shall 
go  to  him !  But  this  clause  in  my  will,  which 
the  Judge  recently  drew  for  me,  will,  I  war 
rant  me,  give  the  dear  child  the  greatest 
happiness: 

"  Item.  To  my  beloved  grandnephew  and 
namesake,  Matthew,  I  do  bequeath  and  give 
(in  addition  to  the  lands  devised  and  the 
stocks,  bonds  and  moneys  willed  to  him,  a* 
hereinabove  specified)  the  two  mahogany  book 
cases  numbered  1 1  and  13,  and  the  contents 
thereof,  being  volumes  of  fairy  and  folk  tales 
of  all  nations,  and  dictionaries  and  other 
treatises  upon  demonology,  witchcraft,  my 
thology,  magic  and  kindred  subjects,  to  be 
his,  bis  heirs,  and  his  assigns,  forever. 


€fjc  Humirp  of  ftcabing  in 


Ill 

THE   LUXURY   OF  READING   IN   BED 

I  AST  night,  having  written  what  you  have 
Lrf  just  read  about  the  benefits  of  fairy  lit 
erature,  I  bethought  me  to  renew  my  ac 
quaintance  with  some  of  those  tales  which 
so  often  have  delighted  and  solaced  me.  So 
I  piled  at  least  twenty  chosen  volumes  on 
the  table  at  the  head  of  my  bed,  and  I  dare 
say  it  was  nigh  daylight  when  I  fell  asleep. 
I  began  my  entertainment  with  several  pages 
from  Keightley's  "Fairy  Mythology,"  and 
followed  it  up  with  random  bits  from  Crof- 
ton  Croker's  "Traditions  of  the  South  of  Ire 
land,"  Mrs.  Carey's  "Legends  of  the  French 
Provinces,"  Andrew  Lang's  Green,  Blue 
and  Red  fairy  books,  Laboulaye's  "Last 
Fairy  Tales,"  Hauff's  "The  Inn  in  the  Spes- 
sart,"  Julia  Goddard's  "Golden  Weather 
cock,"  Frere's  "Eastern  Fairy  Legends," 
29 


THE    LOVE    AFFAIRS   OF 

Asbjornsen's  "Folk  Tales,"  Susan  Pindar's 
' '  Midsummer  Fays, "  Nisbit  Bain's  ' '  Cossack 
Fairy  Tales,"  etc.,  etc. 

I  fell  asleep  with  a  copy  of  Villamaria's 
fairy  stories  in  my  hands,  and  I  had  a  delight 
ful  dream  wherein,  under  the  protection  and 
guidance  of  my  fairy  godmother,  I  undertook 
the  rescue  of  a  beautiful  princess  who  had 
been  enchanted  by  a  cruel  witch  and  was 
kept  in  prison  by  the  witch's  son,  a  hideous 
ogre  with  seven  heads,  whose  companions 
were  four  equally  hideous  dragons. 

This  undertaking  in  which  I  was  engaged 
involved  a  period  of  five  years,  but  time  is 
of  precious  little  consideration  to  one  when 
he  is  dreaming  of  exploits  achieved  in  behalf 
of  a  beautiful  princess.  My  fairy  godmother 
(she  wore  a  mob-cap  and  was  hunchbacked) 
took  good  care  of  me,  and  conducted  me 
safely  through  all  my  encounters  with  de 
mons,  giants,  dragons,  witches,  serpents, 
hippogriffins,  ogres,  etc. ;  and  I  had  just  res 
cued  the  princess  and  broken  the  spell  which 
bound  her,  and  we  were  about  to  "live  in 
peace  to  the  end  of  our  lives,"  when  I  awoke 
to  find  it  was  all  a  dream,  and  that  the  gas- 
30 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

light  over  my  bed  had  been  blazing  away 
during  the  entire  period  of  my  five-year  war 
for  the  delectable  maiden. 

This  incident  gives  me  an  opportunity  to 
say  that  observation  has  convinced  me  that 
all  good  and  true  book-lovers  practise  the 
pleasing  and  improving  avocation  of  reading 
in  bed.  Indeed,  1  fully  believe  with  Judge 
Methuen  that  no  book  can  be  appreciated 
until  it  has  been  slept  with  and  dreamed 
over.  You  recall,  perhaps,  that  eloquent 
passage  in  his  noble  defence  of  the  poet  Ar- 
chias,  wherein  Cicero  (not  Kikero)  refers  to 
his  own  pursuit  of  literary  studies:  "  Haec 
studia  adolescentiam  alunt,  senectutem  ob- 
lectant;  secundas  res  ornant,  adversis  per- 
fugium  ac  solatium  pnebent;  delectant  domi, 
non  impediunt  foris;  pernoftant  nobiscum, 
peregrinantur,  rusticantur! " 

By  the  gods!  you  spoke  truly,  friend  Ci 
cero;  for  it  is  indeed  so,  that  these  pursuits 
nourish  our  earlier  and  delight  our  later 
years,  dignifying  the  minor  details  of  life  and 
affording  a  perennial  refuge  and  solace;  at 
home  they  please  us  and  in  no  vocation  else 
where  do  they  embarrass  us;  they  are  with 
3' 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

us  by  night,  they  go  with  us  upon  our  trav 
els,  and  even  upon  our  retirement  into  the 
country  do  they  accompany  us! 

I  have  italicized  pernoctant  because  it  is 
that  word  which  demonstrates  beyond  all 
possibility  of  doubt  that  Cicero  made  a  prac 
tice  of  reading  in  bed.  Why,  I  can  almost 
see  him  now,  propped  up  in  his  couch,  un 
rolling  scroll  after  scroll  of  his  favorite  litera 
ture,  and  enjoying  it  mightily,  too,  which 
enjoyment  is  interrupted  now  and  then  by 
the  occasion  which  the  noble  reader  takes  to 
mutter  maledictions  upon  the  slave  who  has 
let  the  lamp  run  low  of  oil  or  has  neglected 
to  trim  the  wick. 

"  Peregrinantur  ?  "  Indeed,  they  do  share 
our  peregrinations,  these  literary  pursuits  do. 
If  Thomas  Hearne  (of  blessed  memory!)  were 
alive  to-day  he  would  tell  us  that  he  used 
always  to  take  a  book  along  with  him  when 
ever  he  went  walking,  and  was  wont  to  read 
it  as  he  strolled  along.  On  several  occasions 
(as  he  tells  us  in  his  diary)  he  became  so  ab 
sorbed  in  his  reading  that  he  missed  his  way 
and  darkness  came  upon  him  before  he 
knew  it. 

32 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

I  have  always  wondered  why  book-lovers 
have  not  had  more  to  say  of  Hearne,  for  as 
suredly  he  was  as  glorious  a  collector  as 
ever  felt  the  divine  fire  glow  within  him. 
His  character  is  exemplified  in  this  prayer, 
which  is  preserved  among  other  papers  of 
his  in  the  Bodleian  Library : 

"  O  most  gracious  and  merciful  Lord  God, 
wonderful  is  Thy  providence.  I  return  all 
possible  thanks  to  Thee  for  the  care  Thou 
hast  always  taken  of  me.  I  continually  meet 
with  most  signal  instances  of  this  Thy  prov 
idence,  and  one  act  yesterday,  when  I  un 
expectedly  met  with  three  old  MSS.,  for 
which,  in  a  particular  manner,  I  return  my 
thanks,  beseeching  Thee  to  continue  the 
same  protection  to  me,  a  poor,  helpless 
sinner,"  etc. 

Another  prayer  of  Hearne's,  illustrative  of 
his  faith  in  dependence  upon  Divine  coun 
sel,  was  made  at  the  time  Hearne  was  im 
portuned  by  Dr.  Bray,  commissary  to  my 
Lord  Bishop  of  London,  "to  go  to  Mary- 
Land"  in  the  character  of  a  missionary. 
"O  Lord  God,  Heavenly  Father,  look  down 
upon  me  with  pity,"  cries  this  pious  soul, 
33 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

''and  be  pleased  to  be  my  guide,  now  I 
am  importuned  to  leave  the  place  where  I 
have  been  educated  in  the  university.  And 
of  Thy  great  goodness  I  humbly  desire  Thee 
to  signify  to  me  what  is  most  proper  for 
me  to  do  in  this  affair." 

Another  famous  man  who  made  a  prac 
tice  of  reading  books  as  he  walked  the 
highways  was  Dr.  Johnson,  and  it  is  re 
corded  that  he  presented  a  curious  spectacle 
indeed,  for  his  shortsightedness  compelled 
him  to  hold  the  volume  close  to  his  nose, 
and  he  shuffled  along,  rather  than  walked, 
stepping  high  over  shadows  and  stumbling 
over  sticks  and  stones. 

But,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting  story 
illustrative  of  the  practice  of  carrying  one's 
reading  around  with  one  is  that  which  is 
told  of  Professor  Porson,  the  Greek  scholar. 
This  human  monument  of  learning  hap 
pened  to  be  travelling  in  the  same  coach 
with  a  coxcomb  who  sought  to  air  his  pre 
tended  learning  by  quotations  from  the  an 
cients.  At  last  old  Porson  asked : 

"Pri'thee,  sir,  whence  comes  that  quo 
tation?" 

34 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

' '  From  Sophocles, "  quoth  the  vain  fellow. 

"  Be  so  kind  as  to  find  it  for  me  ?  "  asked 
Porson,  producing  a  copy  of  Sophocles  from 
his  pocket. 

Then  the  coxcomb,  not  at  all  abashed, 
said  that  he  meant  not  Sophocles,  but  Euri 
pides.  Whereupon  Porson  drew  from  an 
other  pocket  a  copy  of  Euripides  and  chal 
lenged  the  upstart  to  find  the  quotation  in 
question.  Full  of  confusion,  the  fellow 
thrust  his  head  out  of  the  window  of  the 
coach  and  cried  to  the  driver: 

"In  heaven's  name,  put  me  down  at 
once;  for  there  is  an  old  gentleman  in 
here  that  hath  the  Bodleian  Library  in  his 
pocket! " 

Porson  himself  was  a  veritable  slave  to 
the  habit  of  reading  in  bed.  He  would  lie 
down  with  his  books  piled  around  him, 
then  light  his  pipe  and  start  in  upon  some 
favorite  volume.  A  jug  of  liquor  was  in 
variably  at  hand,  for  Porson  was  a  famous 
drinker.  It  is  related  that  on  one  occasion 
he  fell  into  a  boosy  slumber,  his  pipe  dropped 
out  of  his  mouth  and  set  fire  to  the  bed 
clothes.  -But  for  the  arrival  of  succor  the 

35 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

tipsy  scholar  would  surely  have  been  cre 
mated. 

Another  very  slovenly  fellow  was  De 
Quincey,  and  he  was  devoted  to  reading  in 
bed.  But  De  Quincey  was  a  very  vandal 
when  it  came  to  the  care  and  use  of  books. 
He  never  returned  volumes  he  borrowed, 
and  he  never  hesitated  to  mutilate  a  rare 
book  in  order  to  save  himself  the  labor  and 
trouble  of  writing  out  a  quotation. 

But  perhaps  the  person  who  did  most  to 
bring  reading  in  bed  into  evil  repute  was 
Mrs.  Charles  Elstob,  ward  and  sister  of  the 
Canon  of  Canterbury  (circa  1700).  In  his 
"Dissertation  on  Letter-Founders,"  Rowe 
Mores  describes  this  woman  as  the  "  inde- 
fessa  comes  "  of  her  brother's  studies,  a  fe 
male  student  in  Oxford.  She  was,  says 
Mores,  a  northern  lady  of  an  ancient  family 
and  a  genteel  fortune,  "but  she  pursued 
too  much  the  drug  called  learning,  and  in 
that  pursuit  failed  of  being  careful  of  any 
one  thing  necessary.  In  her  latter  years 
she  was  tutoress  in  the  family  of  the  Duke 
of  Portland,  where  we  visited  her  in  her 
sleeping-room  at  Bulstrode,  surrounded 
36 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

with  books  and  dirtiness,  the  usual  appen 
dages  of  folk  of  learning!  " 

There  is  another  word  which  Cicero  uses 
—  for  I  have  still  somewhat  more  to  say  of 
that  passage  from  the  oration  "pro  Archia 
poeta" — the  word  "  rusticantur,"  which  in 
dicates  that  civilization  twenty  centuries 
ago  made  a  practice  of  taking  books  out  into 
the  country  for  summer  reading.  "These 
literary  pursuits  rusticate  with  us,"  says 
Cicero,  and  thus  he  presents  to  us  a  pen- 
picture  of  the  Roman  patrician  stretched 
upon  the  cool  grass  under  the  trees,  perus 
ing  the  latest  popular  romance,  while,  for 
sooth,  in  yonder  hammock  his  dignified 
spouse  swings  slowly  to  and  fro,  conning 
the  pages  and  the  colored  plates  of  the  cur 
rent  fashion  journal.  Surely  in  the  telltale 
word  "rusticantur"  you  and  I  and  the  rest 
of  human  nature  find  a  worthy  precedent 
and  much  encouragement  for  our  practice 
of  loading  up  with  plenty  of  good  reading 
before  we  start  for  the  scene  of  our  annual 
summering. 

As  for  myself,  I  never  go  away  from  home 
that  I  do  not  take  a  trunkful  of  books  with 

37 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

me,  for  experience  has  taught  me  that  there 
is  no  companionship  better  than  that  of 
these  friends,  who,  however  much  all  things 
else  may  vary,  always  give  the  same  re 
sponse  to  my  demand  upon  their  solace 
and  their  cheer.  My  sister,  Miss  Susan,  has 
often  inveighed  against  this  practice  of  mine, 
and  it  was  only  yesterday  that  she  informed 
me  that  I  was  the  most  exasperating  man 
in  the  world. 

However,  as  Miss  Susan's  experience  with 
men  during  the  sixty-seven  hot  summers 
and  sixty-eight  hard  winters  of  her  life  has 
been  somewhat  limited,  1  think  I  should 
bear  her  criticism  without  a  murmur.  Miss 
Susan  is  really  one  of  the  kindest  creatures 
in  all  the  world.  It  is  her  misfortune  that 
she  has  had  all  her  life  an  insane  passion  for 
collecting  crockery,  old  pewter,  old  brass, 
old  glass,  old  furniture  and  other  trumpery 
of  that  character;  a  passion  with  which  I 
have  little  sympathy.  I  do  not  know  that 
Miss  Susan  is  prouder  of  her  collection  of 
all  this  folderol  than  she  is  of  the  fact  that 
she  is  a  spinster. 

This  latter  peculiarity  asserts  itself  upon 
38 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

every  occasion  possible.  I  recall  an  unpleas 
ant  scene  in  the  omnibus  last  winter,  when 
the  obsequious  conductor,  taking  advantage 
of  my  sister's  white  hair  and  furrowed  cheeks, 
addressed  that  estimable  lady  as  "  Madam." 
I  'd  have  you  know  that  my  sister  gave  the 
fellow  to  understand  very  shortly  and  in 
very  vigorous  English  (emphasized  with  her 
blue  silk  umbrella)  that  she  was  Miss  Susan, 
and  that  she  did  not  intend  to  be  Madamed 
by  anybody,  under  any  condition. 


39 


€lje  attania  of  CoHrcthiff 


IV 

THE   MANIA   OF  COLLECTING 
SEIZES   ME 

APTIVITY  Waite  never  approved  of  my 
fondness  for  fairy  literature.  She  shared 
the  enthusiasm  which  I  expressed  whenever 
" Robinson  Crusoe"  was  mentioned;  there 
was  just  enough  seriousness  in  De  Foe's  ro 
mance,  just  enough  piety  to  appeal  for  sym 
pathy  to  one  of  Captivity  Waite's  religious 
turn  of  mind.  When  it  came  to  fiction  in 
volving  witches,  ogres,  and  flubdubs,  that 
was  too  much  for  Captivity,  and  the  spirit  of 
the  little  Puritan  revolted. 

Yet  I  have  the  documentary  evidence  to 
prove  that  Captivity's  ancestors  (both  pater 
nal  and  maternal)  were,  in  the  palmy  colonial 
times,  as  abject  slaves  to  superstition  as  could 
well  be  imagined.  The  Waites  of  Salem 
were  famous  persecutors  of  witches,  and 
43 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Sinai  Higginbotham  (Captivity's  great-great 
grandfather  on  her  mother's  side  of  the  fa 
mily)  was  Cotton  Mather's  boon  companion, 
and  rode  around  the  gallows  with  that  zeal 
ous  theologian  on  that  memorable  occasion 
when  five  young  women  were  hanged  at 
Danvers  upon  the  charge  of  having  tor 
mented  little  children  with  their  damnable 
arts  of  witchcraft.  Human  thought  is  like  a 
monstrous  pendulum:  it  keeps  swinging 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  Within  the 
compass  of  five  generations  we  find  the 
Puritan  first  an  uncompromising  believer  in 
demonology  and  magic,  and  then  a  scoffer  at 
everything  involving  the  play  of  fancy. 

I  felt  harshly  toward  Captivity  Waite  for  a 
time,  but  I  harbor  her  no  ill-will  now;  on 
the  contrary,  I  recall  with  very  tender  feel 
ings  the  distant  time  when  our  sympathies 
were  the  same  and  when  we  journeyed  the 
pathway  of  early  youth  in  a  companionship 
sanctified  by  the  innocence  and  the  loyalty 
and  the  truth  of  childhood.  Indeed,  I  am 
not  sure  that  that  early  friendship  did  not 
make  a  lasting  impression  upon  my  life;  I 
have  thought  of  Captivity  Waite  a  great 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

many  times,  and  I  have  not  unfrequently 
wondered  what  might  have  been  but  for 
that  book  of  fairy  tales  which  my  Uncle 
Cephas  sent  me. 

She  was  a  very  pretty  child,  and  she  lost 
none  of  her  comeliness  and  none  of  her 
sweetness  of  character  as  she  approached 
maturity.  I  was  impressed  with  this  upon 
my  return  from  college.  She,  too,  had  pur 
sued  those  studies  deemed  necessary  to  the 
acquirement  of  a  good  education;  she  had 
taken  a  four  years'  course  at  South  Holyoke 
and  had  finished  at  Mrs.  Willard's  seminary 
at  Troy.  "  You  will  now,"  said  her  father, 
and  he  voiced  the  New  England  sentiment 
regarding  young  womanhood;  "you  will 
now  return  to  the  quiet  of  your  home  and 
under  the  direction  of  your  mother  study  the 
performance  of  those  weightier  duties  which 
qualify  your  sex  for  a  realization  of  the  sol 
emn  responsibilities  of  human  life." 

Three  or  four  years  ago  a  fine-looking 
young  fellow  walked  in  upon  me  with  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  his  mother.  He 
was  Captivity  Waite's  son!  Captivity  is  a 
widow  now,  and  she  is  still  living  in  her 
45 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

native  State,  within  twenty  miles  of  the  spot 
where  she  was  born.  Colonel  Parker,  her 
husband,  left  her  a  good  property  when  he 
died,  and  she  is  famous  for  her  chanties. 
She  has  founded  a  village  library,  and  she 
has  written  me  on  several  occasions  for  ad 
vice  upon  proposed  purchases  of  books. 

I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  I  had  a  good 
deal  of  malicious  pleasure  in  sending  her  not 
long  ago  a  reminder  of  old  times  in  these 
words:  "  My  valued  friend,"  I  wrote,  "  I  see 
by  the  catalogue  recently  published  that  your 
village  library  contains,  among  other  volumes 
representing  the  modern  school  of  fiction, 
eleven  copies  of  'Trilby'  and  six  copies  of 
'The  Heavenly  Twins.'  I  also  note  an  ab 
sence  of  certain  works  whose  influence  upon 
my  earlier  life  was  such  that  I  make  bold  to 
send  copies  of  the  same  to  your  care  in  the 
hope  that  you  will  kindly  present  them  to  the 
library  with  my  most  cordial  compliments. 
These  are  a  copy  each  of  the  'New  England 
Primer '  and  Grimm's  '  Household  Stories.' ' 

At  the  age  of  twenty-three,  having  been 
graduated  from  college  and  having  read  the 
poems  of  Villon,  the  confessions  of  Rousseau, 
46 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

and  Boswell's  life  of  Johnson,  I  was  con 
vinced  that  I  had  comprehended  the  sum  of 
human  wisdom  and  knew  all  there  was 
worth  knowing.  If  at  the  present  time  — 
for  I  am  seventy-two  —  I  knew  as  much  as  I 
thought  I  knew  at  twenty-three  I  should 
undoubtedly  be  a  prodigy  of  learning  and 
wisdom. 

I  started  out  to  be  a  philosopher.  My 
grandmother's  death  during  my  second  year 
at  college  possessed  me  of  a  considerable 
sum  of  money  and  severed  every  tie  and 
sentimental  obligation  which  had  previously 
held  me  to  my  grandmother's  wish  that  I 
become  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  When  I 
became  convinced  that  I  knew  everything  I 
conceived  a  desire  to  see  something,  for  I  had 
traveled  none  and  I  had  met  but  few  people. 

Upon  the  advice  of  my  Uncle  Cephas,  I 
made  a  journey  to  Europe,  and  devoted  two 
years  to  seeing  sights  and  to  acquainting 
myself  with  the  people  and  the  customs 
abroad.  Nine  months  of  this  time  I  spent 
in  Paris,  which  was  then  an  irregular  and 
unkempt  city,  but  withal  quite  as  evil  as  at 
present.  I  took  apartments  in  the  Latin 

47 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Quarter,  and,  being  of  a  generous  nature,  I 
devoted  a  large  share  of  my  income  to  the 
support  of  certain  artists  and  students  whose 
talents  and  time  were  expended  almost  ex 
clusively  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 

While  thus  serving  as  a  visible  means  of 
support  to  this  horde  of  parasites,  I  fell  in  with 
the  man  who  has  since  then  been  my  intimate 
friend.  Judge  Methuen  was  a  visitor  in  Paris, 
and  we  became  boon  companions.  It  was 
he  who  rescued  me  from  the  parasites  and 
revived  the  flames  of  honorable  ambition, 
which  had  well-nigh  been  extinguished  by  the 
wretched  influence  of  Villon  and  Rousseau. 
The]  udge  was  a  year  my  senior,  and  a  wealthy 
father  provided  him  with  the  means  for  gra 
tifying  his  wholesome  and  refined  tastes. 
We  two  went  together  to  London,  and  it  was 
during  our  sojourn  in  that  capital  that  I  began 
my  career  as  a  collector  of  books.  It  is  sim 
ply  justice  to  my  benefactor  to  say  that  to  my 
dear  friend  Methuen  I  am  indebted  for  the  in 
spiration  which  started  me  upon  a  course  so 
full  of  sweet  surprises  and  precious  rewards. 

There  are  very  many  kinds  of  book  col 
lectors,  but  I  think  all  may  be  grouped  in 
48 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

three  classes,  viz. :  Those  who  collect  from 
vanity;  those  who  collect  for  the  benefits  of 
learning;  those  who  collect  through  a  ven 
eration  and  love  for  books.  It  is  not  unfre- 
quent  that  men  who  begin  to  collect  books 
merely  to  gratify  their  personal  vanity  find 
themselves  presently  so  much  in  love  with 
the  pursuit  that  they  become  collectors  in 
the  better  sense. 

Just  as  a  man  who  takes  pleasure  in  the 
conquest  of  feminine  hearts  invariably  finds 
himself  at  last  ensnared  by  the  very  passion 
which  he  has  been  using  simply  for  the  gra 
tification  of  his  vanity,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  element  of  vanity  enters,  to  a  de 
gree,  into  every  phase  of  book  collecting; 
vanity  is,  I  take  it,  one  of  the  essentials  to 
a  well-balanced  character  —  not  a  prodigi 
ous  vanity,  but  a  prudent,  well-governed 
one.  But  for  vanity  there  would  be  no  com 
petition  in  the  world ;  without  competition 
there  would  be  no  progress. 

In  these  later  days  I  often  hear  this  man 
or  that  sneered  at  because,  forsooth,  he  col 
lects  books  without  knowing  what  the  books 
are  about,  But  for  my  part,  I  say  that  that 
49 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

man  bids  fair  to  be  all  right;  he  has  made  a 
proper  start  in  the  right  direction,  and  the 
likelihood  is  that,  other  things  being  equal, 
he  will  eventually  become  a  lover,  as  well  as 
a  buyer,  of  books.  Indeed,  I  care  not  what 
the  beginning  is,  so  long  as  it  be  a  beginning. 
There  are  different  ways  of  reaching  the  goal. 
Some  folk  go  horseback  via  the  royal  road,  but 
very  many  others  are  compelled  to  adopt 
the  more  tedious  processes,  involving  rocky 
pathways  and  torn  shoon  and  sore  feet. 

So  subtile  and  so  infectious  is  this  grand 
passion  that  one  is  hardly  aware  of  its  pres 
ence  before  it  has  complete  possession  of 
him;  and  I  have  known  instances  of  men 
who,  after  having  associated  one  evening 
with  Judge  Methuen  and  me,  have  waked 
up  the  next  morning  filled  with  the  incur 
able  enthusiasm  of  bibliomania.  But  the 
development  of  the  passion  is  not  always 
marked  by  exhibitions  of  violence;  some 
times,  like  the  measles,  it  is  slow  and  obsti 
nate  about  "  coming  out,"  and  in  such  cases 
applications  should  be  resorted  to  for  the 
purpose  of  diverting  the  malady  from  the 
vitals;  otherwise  serious  results  may  ensue. 
50 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Indeed,  my  learned  friend  Dr.  O'Rell  has 
met  with  several  cases  (as  he  informs  me) 
in  which  suppressed  bibliomania  has  resulted 
fatally.  Many  of  these  cases  have  been  re 
ported  in  that  excellent  publication,  the 
' 'Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Associa 
tion,"  which  periodical,  by  the  way,  is  edited 
by  ex-Surgeon-General  Hamilton,  a  famous 
collector  of  the  literature  of  ornament  and 
dress. 

To  make  short  of  a  long  story,  the  medi 
cal  faculty  is  nearly  a  unit  upon  the  propo 
sition  that  wherever  suppressed  bibliomania 
is  suspected  immediate  steps  should  be  taken 
to  bring  out  the  disease.  It  is  true  that  an 
Ohio  physician,  named  Woodbury,  has  writ 
ten  much  in  defence  of  the  theory  that  bib 
liomania  can  be  aborted;  but  a  very  large 
majority  of  his  profession  are  of  the  opinion 
that  the  actual  malady  must  needs  run  a 
regular  course,  and  they  insist  that  the  cases 
quoted  as  cured  by  Woodbury  were  not 
genuine,  but  were  bastard  or  false  phases, 
of  the  same  class  as  the  chickenpox  and  the 
German  measles. 

My  mania  exhibited  itself  first  in  an  affec- 
51 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

tation  for  old  books;  it  mattered  not  what 
the  book  itself  was  —  so  long  as  it  bore  an 
ancient  date  upon  its  title-page  or  in  its  co 
lophon  1  pined  to  possess  it.  This  was  not 
only  a  vanity,  but  a  very  silly  one.  In  a 
month's  time  1  had  got  together  a  large  num 
ber  of  these  old  tomes,  many  of  them  folios, 
and  nearly  all  badly  worm-eaten,  and  sadly 
shaken. 

One  day  I  entered  a  shop  kept  by  a  man 
named  Stibbs,  and  asked  if  I  could  procure 
any  volumes  of  sixteenth-century  print. 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Stibbs,  "we  have  a 
cellarful  of  them,  and  we  sell  them  by  the 
ton  or  by  the  cord." 

That  very  day  I  dispersed  my  hoard  of  an 
tiques,  retaining  only  my  Prynne's  "Histrio- 
Mastix"  and  my  Opera  Quinti  Horatii  Flacci 
(8vo,  Aldus,  Venetiis,  1501).  And  then  I 
became  interested  in  British  balladry —  a  no 
ble  subject,  for  which  I  have  always  had  a 
veneration  and  love,  as  the  well-kept  and 
profusely  annotated  volumes  in  cases  3,  6, 
and  9  in  the  front  room  are  ready  to  prove 
to  you  at  any  time  you  choose  to  visit  my 
quiet,  pleasant  home. 
52 


* 


V 

BALDNESS  AND   INTELLECTUALITY 

ONE  of  Judge  Methuen's  pet  theories  is 
that  the  soul  in  the  human  body  lies 
near  the  center  of  gravity ;  this  is,  I  believe, 
one  of  the  tenets  of  the  Buddhist  faith,  and 
for  a  long  time  I  eschewed  it  as  one  might 
shun  a  vile  thing,  for  I  feared  lest  I  should 
become  identified  even  remotely  with  any 
faith  or  sect  other  than  Congregationalism. 

Yet  1  noticed  that  in  moments  of  fear  or 
of  joy  or  of  the  sense  of  any  other  emotion 
I  invariably  experienced  a  feeling  of  goneness 
in  the  pit  of  my  stomach,  as  if,  forsooth,  the 
center  of  my  physical  system  were  also  the 
center  of  my  nervous  and  intellectual  system, 
the  point  at  which  were  focused  all  those 
devious  lines  of  communication  by  means 
of  which  sensation  is  instantaneously  trans 
mitted  from  one  part  of  the  body  to  another. 
55 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

I  mentioned  this  circumstance  to  Judge 
Methuen,  and  it  seemed  to  please  him.  "  My 
friend,"  said  he,  "you  have  a  particularly 
sensitive  soul;  I  beg  of  you  to  exercise  the 
greatest  prudence  in  your  treatment  of  it. 
It  is  the  best  type  of  the  bibliomaniac  soul, 
for  the  quickness  of  its  apprehensions  be 
tokens  that  it  is  alert  and  keen  and  capable 
of  instantaneous  impressions  and  enthusi 
asms.  What  you  have  just  told  me  con 
vinces  me  that  you  are  by  nature  qualified 
for  rare  exploits  in  the  science  and  art  of 
book-collecting.  You  will  presently  be 
come  bald  —  perhaps  as  bald  as  Thomas 
Hobbes  was  —  for  a  vigilant  and  active  soul 
invariably  compels  baldness,  so  close  are 
the  relations  between  the  soul  and  the  brain, 
and  so  destructive  are  the  growth  and  op 
erations  of  the  soul  to  those  vestigial  fea 
tures  which  humanity  has  inherited  from 
those  grosser  animals,  our  prehistoric  an 
cestors." 

You  see  by  this  that  Judge  Methuen  recog 
nized  baldness  as  prima-facie  evidence  of  in 
tellectuality  and  spirituality.  He  has  collected 
much  literature  upon  the  subject,  and  has 
56 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

promised  the  Academy  of  Science  to  prepare 
and  read  for  the  instruction  of  that  learned 
body  an  essay  demonstrating  that  absence 
of  hair  from  the  cranium  (particularly  from 
the  superior  regions  of  the  frontal  and  parie 
tal  divisions)  proves  a  departure  from  the 
instincts  and  practices  of  brute  humanity, 
and  indicates  surely  the  growth  of  the  un 
derstanding. 

It  occurred  to  the  Judge  long  ago  to  pre 
pare  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  famous  bald 
men  in  the  history  of  human  society,  and 
this  list  has  grown  until  it  includes  the  names 
of  thousands,  representing  every  profession 
and  vocation.  Homer,  Socrates,  Confucius, 
Aristotle,  Plato,  Cicero,  Pliny,  Maecenas, 
Julius  Caesar,  Horace,  Shakespeare,  Bacon, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  Dante,  Pope,  Cowper, 
Goldsmith,  Wordsworth,  Israel  Putnam,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Patrick  Henry  —  these  ge 
niuses  all  were  bald.  But  the  baldest  of  all 
was  the  philosopher  Hobbes,  of  whom  the 
revered  John  Aubrey  has  recorded  that  "  he 
was  very  bald,  yet  within  dore  he  used  to 
study  and  sitt  bare-headed,  and  said  he  never 
took  cold  in  his  head,  but  that  the  greatest 
57 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

trouble  was  to  keepe  off  the  flies  from  pitch 
ing  on  the  baldness." 

In  all  the  portraits  and  pictures  of  Bona 
parte  which  I  have  seen,  a  conspicuous  feature 
is  that  curl  or  lock  of  hair  which  depends 
upon  the  emperor's  forehead,  and  gives  to 
the  face  a  pleasant  degree  of  picturesque  dis 
tinction.  Yet  this  was  a  vanity,  and  really 
a  laughable  one;  for  early  in  life  Bonaparte 
began  to  get  bald,  and  this  so  troubled  him 
that  he  sought  to  overcome  the  change  it 
made  in  his  appearance  by  growing  a  long 
strand  of  hair  upon  his  occiput  and  bringing 
it  forward  a  goodly  distance  in  such  artful 
v/ise  that  it  right  ingeniously  served  the  pur 
poses  of  that  Hyperion  curl  which  had  been 
the  pride  of  his  youth,  but  which  had  fallen 
early  before  the  ravages  of  time. 

As  for  myself,  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever 
shared  that  derisive  opinion  in  which  the  un 
thinking  are  wont  to  hold  baldness.  Nay, 
on  the  contrary,  I  have  always  had  especial 
reverence  for  this  mark  of  intellectuality,  and 
I  agree  with  my  friend  Judge  Methuen  that 
the  tragic  episode  recorded  in  the  second 
chapter  of  II.  Kings  should  serve  the  honora- 

58 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

ble  purpose  of  indicating  to  humanity  that 
bald  heads  are  favored  with  the  approval  and 
the  protection  of  Divinity. 

In  my  own  case  I  have  imputed  my  early 
baldness  to  growth  in  intellectuality  and 
spirituality  induced  by  my  fondness  for  and 
devotion  to  books.  Miss  Susan,  my  sister, 
lays  it  to  other  causes,  first  among  which 
she  declares  to  be  my  unnatural  practice  of 
reading  in  bed,  and  the  second  my  habit  of 
eating  welsh-rarebits  late  of  nights.  Over 
my  bed  I  have  a  gas-jet  so  properly  shaded 
that  the  rays  of  light  are  concentrated  and 
reflected  downward  upon  the  volume  which 
I  am  reading. 

Miss  Susan  insists  that  much  of  this  light 
and  its  attendant  heat  falls  upon  my  head, 
compelling  there  a  dryness  of  the  scalp 
whereby  the  follicles  have  been  deprived  of 
their  natural  nourishment  and  have  conse 
quently  died.  She  furthermore  maintains 
that  the  welsh-rarebits  of  which  I  partake 
invariably  at  the  eleventh  hour  every  night 
breed  poisonous  vapors  and  subtle  megrims 
within  my  stomach,  which  humors,  rising 
by  their  natural  courses  to  my  brain,  do 
59 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

therein  produce  a  fever  that  from  within  burn- 
eth  up  the  fluids  necessary  to  a  healthy  con 
dition  of  the  capillary  growth  upon  the  super- 
adjacent  and  exterior  cranial  integument. 

Now,  this  very  declaration  of  Miss  Susan's 
gives  me  a  potent  argument  in  defence  of 
my  practices,  for,  being  bald,  would  not  a 
neglect  of  those  means  whereby  warmth  is 
engendered  where  it  is  needed  result  in 
colds,  quinsies,  asthmas,  and  a  thousand 
other  banes  ?  The  same  benignant  Provi 
dence  which,  according  to  Laurence  Sterne, 
tempereth  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,  pro- 
videth  defence  and  protection  for  the  bald. 
Had  I  not  loved  books,  the  soul  in  my  mid 
riff  had  not  done  away  with  those  capillary 
vestiges  of  my  simian  ancestry  which  origi 
nally  flourished  upon  my  scalp;  had  I  not 
become  bald,  the  delights  and  profits  of 
reading  in  bed  might  never  have  fallen  to 
my  lot. 

And  indeed  baldness  has  its  compensa 
tions;  when  1  look  about  me  and  see  the 
time,  the  energy,  and  the  money  that  are 
continually  expended  upon  the  nurture  and 
tending  of  the  hair,  I  am  thankful  that  my  lot 
60 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

is  what  it  is.  For  now  my  money  is  applied 
to  the  buying  of  books,  and  my  time  and 
energy  are  devoted  to  the  reading  of  them. 
To  thy  vain  employments,  thou  becurled 
and  pomaded  Absalom!  Sweeter  tlian  thy 
unguents  and  cosmetics  and  Sabean  per 
fumes  is  the  smell  of  those  old  books  of  mine, 
which  from  the  years  and  from  the  ship's  hold 
and  from  constant  companionship  with  sages 
and  philosophers  have  acquired  a  fragrance 
that  exalteth  the  soul  and  quickeneth  the 
intellectuals!  Let  me  paraphrase  my  dear 
Chaucer  and  tell  thee,  thou  waster  of  sub 
stances,  that 

For  me  was  lever  ban  at  my  beddes  bed 
A  twenty  bokes,  clothed  in  black  and  red, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophic, 
Than  robes  rich,  or  fidel,  or  sautrie  ; 
But  all  be  that  I  ben  a  philosopher 
Yet  have  I  but  litel  gold  in  cofre  ! 

Books,  books,  books — give  me  ever  more 
books,  for  they  are  the  caskets  wherein  we 
find  the  immortal  expressions  of  humanity 
—  words,  the  only  things  that  live  forever! 
I  bow  reverently  to  the  bust  in  yonder  corner 
whenever  I  recall  what  Sir  John  Herschel 
61 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

(God  rest  his  dear  soul!)  said  and  wrote: 
"Were  1  to  pay  for  a  taste  that  should  stand 
me  in  stead  under  every  variety  of  circum 
stances  and  be  a  source  of  happiness  and 
cheerfulness  to  me  during  life,  and  a  shield 
against  its  ills,  however  things  might  go 
amiss  and  the  world  frown  upon  me,  it 
would  be  a  taste  for  reading.  Give  a  man 
this  taste  and  a  means  of  gratifying  it,  and 
you  can  hardly  fail  of  making  him  a  happy 
man;  unless,  indeed,  you  put  into  his  hands 
a  most  perverse  selection  of  books.  You 
place  him  in  contact  with  the  best  society  in 
every  period  of  history  —  with  the  wisest, 
the  wittiest,  the  tenderest,  the  bravest,  and 
the  purest  characters  who  have  adorned 
humanity.  You  make  him  a  denizen  of  all 
nations,  a  contemporary  of  all  ages.  The 
world  has  been  created  for  him." 

For  one  phrase  particularly  do  all  good 
men,  methinks,  bless  burly,  bearish,  phrase- 
making  old  Tom  Carlyle.  "Of  all  things," 
quoth  he,  "  which  men  do  or  make  here  be 
low  by  far  the  most  momentous,  wonderful, 
and  worthy  are  the  things  we  call  books." 
And  Judge  Methuen's  favorite  quotation  is 
62 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

from  Babington  Macaulay  to  this  effect:  "I 
would  rather  be  a  poor  man  in  a  garret  with 
plenty  of  books  than  a  king  who  did  not 
love  reading." 

Kings,  indeed !  What  a  sorry  lot  are  they ! 
Said  George  III.  to  Nicol,  his  bookseller:  "  I 
would  give  this  right  hand  if  the  same  atten 
tion  had  been  paid  to  my  education  which  I 
pay  to  that  of  the  prince."  Louis  XIV. 
was  as  illiterate  as  the  lowliest  hedger  and 
ditcher.  He  could  hardly  write  his  name; 
at  first,  as  Samuel  Pegge  tells  us,  he  formed 
it  out  of  six  straight  strokes  and  a  line  of 
beauty,  thus:  II  I  I  I  I  S  —  which  he 
afterward  perfected  as  best  he  could,  and 
the  result  was  LOUIS. 

Still  I  find  it  hard  to  inveigh  against  kings 
when  I  recall  the  goodness  of  Alexander  to 
Aristotle,  for  without  Alexander  we  should 
hardly  have  known  of  Aristotle.  His  royal 
patron  provided  the  philosopher  with  every 
advantage  for  the  acquisition  of  learning, 
dispatching  couriers  to  all  parts  of  the  earth 
to  gather  books  and  manuscripts  and  every 
variety  of  curious  thing  likely  to  swell  the 
store  of  Aristotle's  knowledge. 

63 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

Yet  set  them  up  in  a  line  and  survey  them 
—  these  wearers  of  crowns  and  these  wield- 
ers  of  scepters  —  and  how  pitiable  are  they 
in  the  paucity  and  vanity  of  their  accomplish 
ments!  What  knew  they  of  the  true  happi 
ness  of  human  life  ?  They  and  their  cour 
tiers  are  dust  and  forgotten. 

Judge  Methuen  and  I  shall  in  due  time  pass 
away,  but  our  courtiers  —  they  who  have 
ever  contributed  to  our  delight  and  solace  — 
our  Horace,  our  Cervantes,  our  Shakespeare, 
and  the  rest  of  the  innumerable  train — these 
shall  never  die.  And  inspired  and  sustained 
by  this  immortal  companionship  we  blithely 
walk  the  pathway  illumined  by  its  glory, 
and  we  sing,  in  season  and  out,  the  song 
ever  dear  to  us  and  ever  dear  to  thee,  I  hope, 
O  gentle  reader: 

Oh,  for  a  booke  and  a  shady  nooke, 

Eyther  in  doore  or  out, 
With  the  greene  leaves  whispering  overhead, 

Or  the  streete  cryes  all  about; 
Where  I  maie  reade  all  at  my  ease 

Both  of  the  newe  and  old, 
For  a  jollie  goode  booke  whereon  to  looke 

Is  better  to  me  than  golde! 


64 


Romance  toitf)  j?iammctta« 
V 


VI 
MY   ROMANCE   WITH   FIAMMETTA 

MY  bookseller  and  I  came  nigh  to  blows 
some  months  ago  over  an  edition  of 
Boccaccio,  which  my  bookseller  tried  to  sell 
me.  This  was  a  copy  in  the  original,  pub 
lished  at  Antwerp  in  1603,  prettily  rubricated, 
and  elaborately  adorned  with  some  forty  or 
fifty  copperplates  illustrative  of  the  text.  I 
dare  say  the  volume  was  cheap  enough  at 
thirty  dollars,  but  I  did  not  want  it. 

My  reason  for  not  wanting  it  gave  rise  to 
that  discussion  between  my  bookseller  and 
myself,  which  became  very  heated  before  it 
ended.  I  said  very  frankly  that  I  did  not 
care  for  the  book  in  the  original,  because  I 
had  several  translations  done  by  the  most 
competent  hands.  Thereupon  my  booksel 
ler  ventured  that  aged  and  hackneyed  argu 
ment  which  has  for  centuries  done  the  book 
67 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

trade  such  effective  service  —  namely,  that 
in  every  translation,  no  matter  how  good 
that  translation  may  be,  there  is  certain  to 
be  lost  a  share  of  the  flavor  and  spirit  of  the 
meaning. 

"  Fiddledeedee!  "  said  I.  "  Do  you  sup 
pose  that  these  translators  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  the  study  and  practice  of  the 
art  are  not  competent  to  interpret  the  differ 
ent  shades  and  colors  of  meaning  better  than 
the  mere  dabbler  in  foreign  tongues  ?  And 
then,  again,  is  not  human  life  too  short  for 
the  lover  of  books  to  spend  his  precious 
time  digging  out  the  recondite  allusions  of 
authors,  lexicon  in  hand  ?  My  dear  sir,  it  is 
a  wickedly  false  economy  to  expend  time  and 
money  for  that  which  one  can  get  done  much 
better  and  at  a  much  smaller  expenditure  by 
another  hand." 

From  my  encounter  with  my  bookseller 
I  went  straight  home  and  took  down  my 
favorite  copy  of  the  "Decameron"  and 
thumbed  it  over  very  tenderly ;  for  you  must 
know  th-at  I  am  particularly  attached  to  that 
little  volume.  I  can  hardly  realize  that  nearly 
half  a  century  has  elapsed  since  Yseult  Har- 
68 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

dynge  and  I  parted.  She  was  such  a  crea 
ture  as  the  great  novelist  himself  would 
have  chosen  for  a  heroine;  she  had  the 
beauty  and  the  wit  of  those  Florentine  ladies 
who  flourished  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  whose  graces  of  body  and  mind  have 
been  immortalized  by  Boccaccio.  Her  eyes, 
as  I  particularly  recall,  were  specially  fine, 
reflecting  from  their  dark  depths  every  ex 
pression  of  her  varying  moods. 

Why  I  called  her  Fiammetta  I  cannot  say, 
for  I  do  not  remember;  perhaps  from  a  boy 
ish  fancy,  merely.  At  that  time  Boccaccio 
and  I  were  famous  friends;  we  were  to 
gether  constantly,  and  his  companionship 
had  such  an  influence  upon  me  that  for  the 
nonce  I  lived  and  walked  and  had  my  being 
in  that  distant,  romantic  period  when  all 
men  were  gallants  and  all  women  were 
grandes  dames  and  all  birds  were  nightin 
gales. 

I  bought  myself  an  old  Florentine  sword 
at  Noseda's  in  the  Strand  and  hung  it  on 
the  wall  in  my  modest  apartments;  under 
it  I  placed  Boccaccio's  portrait  and  Fiamrnet- 
ta's,  and  I  was  wont  to  drink  toasts  to  these 
69 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

beloved  counterfeit  presentments  in  flagons 
(mind  you,  genuine  antique  flagons)  of  Ital 
ian  wine.  Twice  I  took  Fiammetta  boating 
upon  the  Thames  and  once  to  view  the 
Lord  Mayor's  pageant;  her  mother  was  with 
us  on  both  occasions,  but  she  might  as  well 
have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  for  she 
was  a  stupid  old  soul,  wholly  incapable  of 
sharing  or  appreciating  the  poetic  enthusi 
asms  of  romantic  youth. 

Had  Fiammetta  been  a  book — ah,  unfortu 
nate  lady!  —  had  she  but  been  a  book  she 
might  still  be  mine,  for  me  to  care  for  lov 
ingly  and  to  hide  from  profane  eyes  and  to 
attire  in  crushed  levant  and  gold  and  to 
cherish  as  a  best-beloved  companion  in  mine 
age!  Had  she  been  a  book  she  could  not 
have  been  guilty  of  the  folly  of  wedding 
with  a  yeoman  of  Lincolnshire  —  ah  me, 
what  rude  awakenings  too  often  dispel  the 
pleasing  dreams  of  youth! 

When  I  revisited  England  in  the  sixties, 
I  was  tempted  to  make  an  excursion  into 
Lincolnshire  for  the  purpose  of  renewing 
my  acquaintance  with  Fiammetta.  Before, 
however,  I  had  achieved  that  object  this 
70 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

thought  occurred  to  me:  "You  are  upon  a 
fool's  errand ;  turn  back,  or  you  will  destroy 
forever  one  of  the  sweetest  of  your  boy 
hood  illusions!  You  seek  Fiammetta  in  the 
delusive  hope  of  finding  her  in  the  person 
of  Mrs.  Henry  Boggs;  there  is  but  one  Fiam 
metta,  and  she  is  the  memory  abiding  in 
your  heart.  Spare  yourself  the  misery  of 
discovering  in  the  hearty,  fleshy  Lincoln 
shire  hussif  the  decay  of  the  promises  of 
years  ago;  be  content  to  do  reverence  to 
the  ideal  Fiammetta  who  has  built  her  little 
shrine  in  your  sympathetic  heart!" 

Now  this  was  strange  counsel,  yet  it  had 
so  great  weight  with  me  that  I  was  per 
suaded  by  it,  and  after  lying  a  night  at  the 
Swan-and-Quiver  Tavern  I  went  back  to 
London,  and  never  again  had  a  desire  to 
visit  Lincolnshire. 

But  Fiammetta  is  still  a  pleasing  memory 
— ay,  and  more  than  a  memory  to  me,  for 
whenever  I  take  down  that  precious  book 
and  open  it,  what  a  host  of  friends  do  troop 
forth!  Cavaliers,  princesses,  courtiers,  da- 
moiselles,  monks,  nuns,  equerries,  pages, 
maidens —  humanity  of  every  class  and  con- 

7' 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

dition,  and  all  instinct  with  the  color  of  the 
master  magician,  Boccaccio ! 

And  before  them  all  cometh  a  maiden  with 
dark,  glorious  eyes,  and  she  beareth  gar 
lands  of  roses;  the  moonlight  falleth  like 
a  benediction  upon  the  Florentine  garden 
slope,  and  the  night  wind  seeketh  its  cradle 
in  the  laurel  tree,  and  fain  would  sleep  to 
the  song  of  the  nightingale. 

As  for  Judge  Methuen,  he  loves  his  Boc 
caccio  quite  as  much  as  I  do  mine,  and  be 
ing  somewhat  of  a  versifier  he  has  made  a 
little  poem  on  the  subject,  a  copy  of  which 
1  have  secured  surreptitiously  and  do  now 
offer  for  your  delectation : 

One  day  upon  a  topmost  shelf 

I  found  a  precious  prize  indeed, 
Which  father  used  to  read  himself, 

But  did  not  want  us  boys  to  read; 
A  brown  old  book  of  certain  age 

(As  type  and  binding  seemed  to  show), 
While  on  the  spotted  title-page 

Appeared  the  name  "  Boccaccio." 

I  'd  never  heard  that  name  before, 

But  in  due  season  it  became 
To  him  who  fondly  brooded  o'er 

Those  pages  a  beloved  name! 
72 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Adown  the  centuries  I  walked 
Mid  pastoral  scenes  and  royal  show; 

With  seigneurs  and  their  dames  I  talked  — 
The  crony  of  Boccaccio ! 

Those  courtly  knights  and  sprightly  maids, 

Who  really  seemed  disposed  to  shine 
In  gallantries  and  escapades, 

Anon  became  great  friends  of  mine. 
Yet  was  there  sentiment  with  fun, 

And  oftentimes  my  tears  would  flow 
At  some  quaint  tale  of  valor  done, 

As  told  by  my  Boccaccio. 

In  boyish  dreams  I  saw  again 

Bucolic  belles  and  dames  of  court, 
The  princely  youths  and  monkish  men 

Arrayed  for  sacrifice  or  sport. 
Again  I  heard  the  nightingale 

Sing  as  she  sang  those  years  ago 
In  his  embowered  Italian  vale 

To  my  revered  Boccaccio. 

And  still  I  love  that  brown  old  book 

I  found  upon  the  topmost  shelf — 
I  love  it  so  I  let  none  look 

Upon  the  treasure  but  myself ! 
And  yet  I  have  a  strapping  boy 

Who  (I  have  every  cause  to  know) 
Would  to  its  full  extent  enjoy 

The  friendship  of  Boccaccio! 

73 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

But  boys  are,  oh!  so  different  now 

From- what  they  were  when  I  was  one! 
I  fear  my  boy  would  not  know  how 

To  take  that  old  raconteur's  fun! 
In  your  companionship,  O  friend, 

I  think  it  wise  alone  to  go 
Plucking  the  gracious  fruits  that  bend 

Wheree'er  you  lead,  Boccaccio. 

So  rest  you  there  upon  the  shelf, 

Clad  in  your  garb  of  faded  brown ; 
Perhaps,  sometime,  my  boy  himself 

Shall  find  you  out  and  take  you  down. 
Then  may  he  feel  the  joy  once  more 

That  thrilled  me,  filled  me  years  ago 
When  reverently  I  brooded  o'er 

The  glories  of  Boccaccio! 

Out  upon  the  vile  brood  of  imitators,  I 
say!  Get  ye  gone,  ye  Bandellos  and  ye 
Straparolas  and  ye  other  charlatans  who 
would  fain  possess  yourselves  of  the  empire 
which  the  genius  of  Boccaccio  bequeathed 
to  humanity.  There  is  but  one  master,  and 
to  him  we  render  grateful  homage.  He 
leads  us  down  through  the  cloisters  of  time, 
and  at  his  touch  the  dead  become  reanimate, 
and  all  the  sweetness  and  the  valor  of  anti 
quity  recur;  heroism,  love,  sacrifice,  tears, 

74 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

laughter,  wisdom,  wit,  philosophy,  charity, 
and  understanding  are  his  auxiliaries;  human 
ity  is  his  inspiration,  humanity  his  theme, 
humanity  his  audience,  humanity  his  debtor. 

Now  it  is  of  Tancred's  daughter  he  tells, 
and  now  of  Rossiglione's  wife;  anon  of  the 
cozening  gardener  he  speaks  and  anon  of 
Alibech ;  of  what  befell  Gillette  de  Narbonne, 
of  Iphigenia  and  Cymon,  of  Saladin,  of  Cal- 
andrino,  of  Dianora  and  Ansaldo  we  hear; 
and  what  subject  soever  he  touches  he 
quickens  it  into  life,  and  he  so  subtly  invests 
it  with  that  indefinable  quality  of  his  genius 
as  to  attract  thereunto  not  only  our  sympa 
thies  but  also  our  enthusiasm. 

Yes,  truly,  he  should  be  read  with  under 
standing  ;  what  author  should  not  ?  I  would 
no  more  think  of  putting  my  Boccaccio  into 
the  hands  of  a  dullard  than  I  would  think 
of  leaving  a  bright  and  beautiful  woman  at 
the  mercy  of  a  blind  mute. 

I  have  hinted  at  the  horror  of  the  fate 
which  befell  Yseult  Hardynge  in  the  seclu 
sion  of  Mr.  Henry  Boggs's  Lincolnshire  es 
tate.  Mr.  Henry  Boggs  knew  nothing  of 
romance,  and  he  cared  less;  he  was  wholly 

75 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

incapable  of  appreciating  a  woman  with 
dark,  glorious  eyes  and  an  expanding  soul; 
I  '11  warrant  me  that  he  would  at  any  time 
gladly  have  traded  a  " Decameron"  for  a 
copy  of  "The  Gentleman  Poulterer,"  or  for 
a  year's  subscription  to  that  grewsome 
monument  to  human  imbecility,  London 
"Punch." 
Ah,  Yseult!  hadst  thou  but  been  a  book! 


76 


Ctje  SDriifitytg  of  f  ctiDo:#f  i$$in$ 

V 


VII 
THE    DELIGHTS    OF    FENDER-FISHING 

I  SHOULD  like  to  have  met  Izaak  Walton. 
He  is  one  of  the  few  authors  whom  I 
know  I  should  like  to  have  met.  For  he 
was  a  wise  man,  and  he  had  understand 
ing.  I  should  like  to  have  gone  angling 
with  him,  for  I  doubt  not  that  like  myself 
he  was  more  of  an  angler  theoretically  than 
practically.  My  bookseller  is  a  famous  fish 
erman,  as,  indeed,  booksellers  generally  are, 
since  the  methods  employed  by  fishermen 
to  deceive  and  to  catch  their  finny  prey  are 
very  similar  to  those  employed  by  book 
sellers  to  attract  and  to  entrap  buyers. 

As  for  myself,  I  regard  angling  as  one  of 
the  best  of  avocations,  and  although  I  have 
pursued  it  but  little,  I  concede  that  doubt 
less  had  I  practised  it  oftener  I  should  have 
been  a  better  man.  How  truly  has  Dame 

79 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Juliana  Berners  said  that  "at  the  least  the 
angler  hath  his  wholesome  walk  and  merry 
at  his  ease,  and  a  sweet  air  of  the  sweet 
savqur  of  the  mead  flowers  that  maketh 
him  hungry ;  he  heareth  the  melodious 
harmony  of  fowls  ;  he  seeth  the  young 
swans,  herons,  ducks,  cotes,  and  many  other 
fowls  with  their  broods,  which  meseemeth 
better  than  all  the  noise  of  hounds,  the  blasts 
of  horns,  and  the  cry  of  fowls  that  hunters, 
falconers,  and  fowlers  can  make.  And  if 
the  angler  take  fish  —  surely  then  is  there  no 
man  merrier  than  he  is  in  his  spirit! " 

My  bookseller  cannot  understand  how  it 
is  that,  being  so  enthusiastic  a  fisherman 
theoretically,  I  should  at  the  same  time  in 
dulge  so  seldom  in  the  practice  of  fishing, 
as  if,  forsooth,  a  man  should  be  expected  to 
engage  continually  and  actively  in  every  art 
and  practice  of  which  he  may  happen  to  ap 
prove.  My  young  friend  Edward  Ayer  has 
a  noble  collection  of  books  relating  to  the 
history  of  American  aboriginals  and  to  the 
wars  waged  between  those  Indians  and 
the  settlers  in  this  country ;  my  other  young 
friend  Luther  Mills  has  gathered  together  a 
80 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

multitude  of  books  treating  of  the  Napoleonic 
wars;  yet  neither  Ayer  nor  Mills  hath  ever 
slain  a  man  or  fought  a  battle,  albeit  both 
find  delectation  in  recitals  of  warlike  prow 
ess  and  personal  valor.  I  love  the  night  and 
all  the  poetic  influences  of  that  quiet  time, 
but  I  do  not  sit  up  all  night  in  order  to  hear 
the  nightingale  or  to  contemplate  the  as 
tounding  glories  of  the  heavens. 

For  similar  reasons,  much  as  I  appreciate 
and  marvel  at  the  beauties  of  early  morning, 
I  do  not  make  a  practice  of  early  rising,  and 
sensible  as  I  am  to  the  charms  of  the  bab 
bling  brook  and  of  the  crystal  lake,  I  am  not 
addicted  to  the  practice  of  wading  about  in 
either  to  the  danger  either  to  my  own  health 
or  to  the  health  of  the  finny  denizens  in 
those  places. 

The  best  anglers  in  the  world  are  those 
who  do  not  catch  fish ;  the  mere  slaughter 
of  fish  is  simply  brutal,  and  it  was  with  a 
view  to  keeping  her  excellent  treatise  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  idle  and  the  inappreciative 
that  Dame  Berners  incorporated  that  treatise 
in  a  compendious  book  whose  cost  was  so 
large  that  only  "gentyll  and  noble  men" 
81 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

could  possess  it.  What  mind  has  he  who 
loveth  fishing  merely  for  the  killing  it  in 
volves —  what  mind  has  such  a  one  to  the 
beauty  of  the  ever-changing  panorama  which 
nature  unfolds  to  the  appreciative  eye,  or 
what  communion  has  he  with  those  sweet 
and  uplifting  influences  in  which  the  mea 
dows,  the  hillsides,  the  glades,  the  dells,  the 
forests,  and  the  marshes  abound  ? 

Out  upon  these  vandals,  I  say  —  out  upon 
the  barbarians  who  would  rob  angling  of  its 
poesy,  and  reduce  it  to  the  level  of  the  butch 
er's  trade!  It  becomes  a  base  and  vicious 
avocation,  does  angling,  when  it  ceases  to 
be  what  Sir  Henry  Wotton  loved  to  call  it — 
"an  -employment  for  his  idle  time,  which 
was  then  not  idly  spent;  a  rest  to  his  mind, 
a  cheerer  of  his  spirits,  a  diverter  of  sadness, 
a  calmer  of  unquiet  thoughts,  a  moderator 
of  passions,  a  procurer  of  contentedness,  and 
a  begetter  of  habits  of  peace  and  patience  in 
those  that  professed  and  practised  it!  " 

There  was  another  man  I  should  like  to 
have  met  —  Sir  Henry  Wotton;  for  he  was 
an  ideal  angler.  Christopher  North,  too 
("  an  excellent  angler  and  now  with  God  " !) 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

—  how  I  should  love  to  have  explored  the 
Yarrow  with  him,  for  he  was  a  man  of 
vast  soul,  vast  learning,  and  vast  wit. 

''Would  you  believe  it,  my  dear  Shep 
herd,"  said  he,  "  that  my  piscatory  passions 
are  almost  dead  within  me,  and  I  like  now 
to  saunter  along  the  banks  and  braes,  eying 
the  younkers  angling,  or  to  lay  me  down  on 
some  sunny  spot,  and  with  my  face  up  to 
heaven,  watch  the  slow-changing  clouds!  " 

There  was  the  angling  genius  with  whom 
I  would  fain  go  angling! 

''Angling,"  says  our  revered  St.  Izaak, 
''angling  is  somewhat  like  poetry  —  men 
are  to  be  born  so." 

Doubtless  there  are  poets  who  are  not 
anglers,  but  doubtless  there  never  was  an 
angler  who  was  not  also  a  poet.  Christo 
pher  North  was  a  famous  fisherman ;  he  be 
gan  his  career  as  such  when  he  was  a  child 
of  three  years.  With  his  thread  line  and 
bent-pin  hook  the  wee  tot  set  out  to  make 
his  first  cast  in  "a  wee  burnie"  he  had  dis 
covered  near  his  home.  He  caught  his  fish, 
too,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  day  he  carried 
the  miserable  little  specimen  about  on  a 
83 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

plate,  exhibiting  it  triumphantly.  With  that 
first  experience  began  a  life  which  I  am  fain 
to  regard  as  one  glorious  song  in  praise  of 
the  beauty  and  the  beneficence  of  nature. 

My  bookseller  once  took  me  angling  with 
him  in  a  Wisconsin  lake  which  was  the 
property  of  a  club  of  anglers  to  which  my 
friend  belonged.  As  we  were  to  be  absent 
several  days  I  carried  along  a  box  of  books, 
for  I  esteem  appropriate  reading  to  be  a 
most  important  adjunct  to  an  angling  ex 
pedition.  My  bookseller  had  with  him 
enough  machinery  to  stock  a  whaling  ex 
pedition,  and  I  could  not  help  wondering 
what  my  old  Walton  would  think,  could  he 
drop  down  into  our  company  with  his  mod 
est  equipment  of  hooks,  flies,  and  gentles. 

The  lake  whither  we  went  was  a  large 
and  beautiful  expanse,  girt  by  a  landscape 
which  to  my  fancy  was  the  embodiment  of 
poetic  delicacy  and  suggestion.  I  began  to 
inquire  about  the  chub,  dace,  and  trouts,  but 
my  bookseller  lost  no  time  in  telling  me 
that  the  lake  had  been  rid  of  all  cheap  fry, 
and  had  been  stocked  with  game  fish,  such 
as  bass  and  pike. 

84 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

I  did  not  at  all  relish  this  covert  sneer  at 
traditions  which  I  have  always  reverenced, 
and  the  better  acquainted  I  became  with  my 
bookseller's  modern  art  of  angling  the  less 
I  liked  it.  I  have  little  love  for  that  kind  of 
angling  which  does  not  admit  of  a  simultane 
ous  enjoyment  of  the  surrounding  beauties 
of  nature.  My  bookseller  enjoined  silence 
upon  me,  but  I  did  not  heed  the  injunction, 
for  I  must,  indeed,  have  been  a  mere  wooden 
effigy  to  hold  my  peace  amid  that  pictur 
esque  environment  of  hill,  valley,  wood, 
meadow,  and  arching  sky  of  clear  blue. 

It  was  fortunate  for  me  that  I  had  my 
"Noctes  Ambrosianae"  along,  for  when  I 
had  exhausted  my  praise  of  the  surrounding 
glories  of  nature,  my  bookseller  would  not 
converse  with  me;  so  I  opened  my  book 
and  read  to  him  that  famous  passage  be 
tween  Kit  North  and  the  Ettrick  Shepherd, 
wherein  the  shepherd  discourses  boastfully 
of  his  prowess  as  a  piscator  of  sawmon. 

As  the  sun  approached  midheaven  and 

its  heat  became  insupportable,  I  raised  my 

umbrella;   to  this  sensible  proceeding  my 

bookseller    objected  —  in    fact,    there    was 

85 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

hardly  any  reasonable  suggestion  I  had  to 
make  for  beguiling  the  time  that  my  book 
seller  did  not  protest  against  it,  and  when 
finally  1  produced  my  ''Newcastle  Fisher's 
Garlands"  from  my  basket,  and  began  to 
troll  those  spirited  lines  beginning 

Away  wi'  carking  care  and  gloom 
That  make  life's  pathway  weedy  O! 
A  cheerful  glass  makes  flowers  to  bloom 
And  lightsome  hours  fly  speedy  O! 

he  gathered  in  his  rod  and  tackle,  and  de 
clared  that  it  was  no  use  trying  to  catch 
fish  while  Bedlam  ran  riot. 

As  for  me,  I  had  a  delightful  time  of  it;  I 
caught  no  fish,  to  be  sure:  but  what  of 
that?  I  could  have  caught  fish  had  I  so 
desired,  but,  as  I  have  already  intimated  to 
you  and  as  I  have  always  maintained  and 
always  shall,  the  mere  catching  of  fish  is 
the  least  of  the  many  enjoyments  compre 
hended  in  the  broad,  gracious  art  of  angling. 

Even  my  bookseller  was  compelled  to 
admit  ultimately  that  I  was  a  worthy  dis 
ciple  of  Walton,  for  when  we  had  returned 
to  the  club  house  and  had  partaken  of  our 
supper  I  regaled  the  company  with  many  a 
86 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

cheery  tale  and  merry  song  which  I  had 
gathered  from  my  books.  Indeed,  before  I 
returned  to  the  city  I  was  elected  an  honor 
ary  member  of  the  club  by  acclamation  — 
not  for  the  number  of  fish  I  had  expiscated 
(for  I  did  not  catch  one),  but  for  that  mas 
tery  of  the  science  of  angling  and  the  litera 
ture  and  the  traditions  and  the  religion  and 
the  philosophy  thereof  which,  by  the  grace 
of  the  companionship  of  books,  I  had 
achieved. 

It  is  said  that,  with  his  feet  over  the  fender, 
Macaulay  could  discourse  learnedly  of  French 
poetry,  art,  and  philosophy.  Yet  he  never 
visited  Paris  that  he  did  not  experience  the 
most  exasperating  difficulties  in  making 
himself  understood  by  the  French  customs 
officers. 

In  like  manner  I  am  a  fender-fisherman. 
With  my  shins  toasting  before  a  roaring  fire, 
and  with  Judge  Methuen  at  my  side,  I  love 
to  exploit  the  joys  and  the  glories  of  ang 
ling.  The  Judge  is  ' '  a  brother  of  the  angle, " 
as  all  will  allow  who  have  heard  him  tell 
Father  Prout's  story  of  the  bishop  and  the 
turbots  or  heard  him  sing  — 
87 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

With  angle  rod  and  lightsome  heart, 
Our  conscience  clear,  we  gay  depart 
To  pebbly  brooks  and  purling  streams, 
And  ne'er  a  care  to  vex  our  dreams. 

And  how  could  the  lot  of  the  fender-fisher 
man  be  happier?  No  colds,  quinsies  or 
asthmas  follow  his  incursions  into  the  realms 
of  fancy  where  in  cool  streams  and  peaceful 
lakes  a  legion  of  chubs  and  trouts  and  saw- 
mon  await  him;  in  fancy  he  can  hie  away 
to  the  far-off  Yarrow  and  once  more  share 
the  benefits  of  the  companionship  of  Kit 
North,  the  Shepherd,  and  that  noble  Edin 
burgh  band;  in  fancy  he  can  trudge  the 
banks  of  the  Blackwater  with  the  sage  of 
Watergrasshill ;  in  fancy  he  can  hear  the 
music  of  the  Tyne  and  feel  the  wind  sweep 
cool  and  fresh  o'er  Coquetdale;  in  fancy,  too, 
he  knows  the  friendships  which  only  he 
can  know — the  friendships  of  the  immortals 
whose  spirits  hover  where  human  love  and 
sympathy  attract  them. 

How  well  I  love  ye,  O  my  precious  books 
—  my  Prout,  my  Wilson,  my  Phillips,  my 
Berners,  my  Doubleday,  my  Roxby,  my 
Chatto,  my  Thompson,  my  Crawhall!  For 

88 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

ye  are  full  of  joyousness  and  cheer,  and  your 
songs  uplift  me  and  make  me  young  and 
strong  again. 

And  thou,  homely  little  brown  thing  with 
worn  leaves,  yet  more  precious  to  me  than 
all  jewels  of  the  earth  — come,  let  me  take 
thee  from  thy  shelf  and  hold  thee  lovingly 
in  my  hands  and  press  thee  tenderly  to  this 
aged  and  slow-pulsing  heart  of  mine!  Dost 
thou  remember  how  I  found  thee  halfa  century 
ago  all  tumbled  in  a  lot  of  paltry  trash  ?  Did 
I  not  joyously  possess  thee  for  a  sixpence, 
and  have  I  not  cherished  thee  full  sweetly 
all  these  years  ?  My  Walton,  soon  must  we 
part  forever;  when  I  am  gone  say  unto  him 
who  next  shall  have  thee  to  his  own  that 
with  his  latest  breath  an  old  man  blessed 
thee! 


-f 

a  ant)  tijeiv 
* 


VIII 
BALLADS  AND   THEIR   MAKERS 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  spots  in  all 
London  to  me  is  Bunhill  Fields  ceme 
tery,  for  herein  are  the  graves  of  many  whose 
memory  I  revere.  I  had  heard  that  Joseph 
Ritson  was  buried  here,  and  while  my  sister, 
Miss  Susan,  lingered  at  the  grave  of  her  fa 
vorite  poet,  I  took  occasion  to  spy  around 
among  the  tombstones  in  the  hope  of  dis 
covering  the  last  resting-place  of  the  curious 
old  antiquary  whose  labors  in  the  field  of 
balladry  have  placed  me  under  so  great  a  debt 
of  gratitude  to  him. 

But  after  I  had  searched  in  vain  for  some 
what  more  than  an  hour  one  of  the  keepers 
of  the  place  told  me  that  in  compliance  with 
Ritson's  earnest  desire  while  living,  that  anti 
quary's  grave  was  immediately  after  the  in 
terment  of  the  body  levelled  down  and  left  to 
93 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

the  care  of  nature,  with  no  stone  to  designate 
its  location.  So  at  the  present  time  no  one 
knows  just  where  old  Ritson's  grave  is,  only 
that  within  that  vast  enclosure  where  so 
many  thousand  souls  sleep  their  last  sleep 
the  dust  of  the  famous  ballad-lover  lies  fast 
asleep  in  the  bosom  of  mother  earth. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  awaken  in  Miss 
Susan  any  enthusiasm  for  balladry.  My 
worthy  sister  is  of  a  serious  turn  of  mind, 
and  I  have  heard  her  say  a  thousand  times 
that  convivial  songs  (which  is  her  name  for 
balladry)  are  inspirations,  if  not  actually 
compositions,  of  the  devil.  In  her  younger 
days  Miss  Susan  performed  upon  the  melo- 
deon  with  much  discretion,  and  at  one  time 
I  indulged  the  delusive  hope  that  eventually 
she  would  not  disdain  to  join  me  in  the  vocal 
performance  of  the  best  ditties  of  D'Urfey 
and  his  ilk. 

If  I  do  say  it  myself,  I  had  a  very  pretty 
voice  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  and  even  at 
the  present  time  I  can  deliver  the  ballad  of 
King  Cophetua  and  the  beggar  maid  with 
amazing  spirit  when  I  have  my  friend  Judge 
Methuen  at  my  side  and  a  bowl  of  steaming 

94 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

punch  between  us.  But  my  education  of 
Miss  Susan  ended  without  being  finished. 
We  two  learned  to  perform  the  ballad  of  Sir 
Patrick  Spens  very  acceptably,  but  Miss  Su 
san  abandoned  the  copartnership  when  I 
insisted  that  we  proceed  to  the  sprightly 
ditty  beginning, 

Life's  short  hours  too  fast  are  hasting  — 
Sweet  amours  cannot  be  lasting. 

My  physician,  Dr.  O'Rell,  has  often  told 
me  that  he  who  has  a  well-assorted  ballad 
library  should  never  be  lonely,  for  the  limi 
tations  of  balladry  are  so  broad  that  within 
them  are  to  be  found  performances  adapted 
to  every  mood  to  which  humanity  is  liable. 
And,  indeed,  my  experience  confirms  the 
truth  of  my  physician's  theory.  It  were  hard 
for  me  to  tell  what  delight  I  have  had  upon 
a  hot  and  gusty  day  in  a  perusal  of  the  his 
tory  of  Robin  Hood,  for  there  is  such  ac 
tuality  in  those  simple  rhymes  as  to  dispel 
the  troublesome  environments  of  the  present 
and  transport  me  to  better  times  and  pleas- 
anter  scenes. 

Aha!  how  many  times  have  I  walked  with 

95 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

brave  Robin  in  Sherwood  forest !  How  many 
times  have  Little  John  and  I  couched  under 
the  greenwood  tree  and  shared  with  Friar 
Tuck  the  haunch  of  juicy  venison  and  the 
pottle  of  brown  October  brew !  And  Will 
Scarlet  and  I  have  been  famous  friends  these 
many  a  year,  and  if  Allen-a-Dale  were  here 
he  would  tell  you  that  I  have  trolled  full 
many  a  ballad  with  him  in  praise  of  Maid 
Marian's  peerless  beauty. 

Who  says  that  Sherwood  is  no  more  and 
that  Robin  and  his  merry  men  are  gone  for 
ever  !  Why,  only  yesternight  I  walked  with 
them  in  that  gracious  forest  and  laughed  de 
fiance  at  the  doughty  sheriff  and  his  craven 
menials.  The  moonlight  twinkled  and  sifted 
through  the  boscage,  and  the  wind  was 
fresh  and  cool.  Right  merrily  we  sang,  and 
I  doubt  not  we  should  have  sung  the  whole 
night  through  had  not  my  sister,  Miss  Susan, 
come  tapping  at  my  door,  saying  that  I  had 
waked  her  parrot  and  would  do  well  to 
cease  my  uproar  and  go  to  sleep. 

Judge  Methuen  has  a  copy  of  Bishop  Per 
cy's  " Reliques  of  Ancient  English  Poetry" 
that  he  prizes  highly.  It  is  the  first  edition 
96 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

of  this  noble  work,  and  was  originally  pre 
sented  by  Percy  to  Dr.  Birch  of  the  British 
Museum.  The  Judge  found  these  three  vol 
umes  exposed  for  sale  in  a  London  book 
stall,  and  he  comprehended  them  without 
delay  —  a  great  bargain,  you  will  admit, 
when  I  tell  you  that  they  cost  the  Judge  but 
three  shillings!  How  came  these  precious 
volumes  into  that  book  stall  I  shall  not  pre 
sume  to  say. 

Strange  indeed  are  the  vicissitudes  which 
befall  books,  stranger  even  than  the  happen 
ings  in  human  life.  All  men  are  not  as  con 
siderate  of  books  as  I  am ;  I  wish  they  were. 
Many  times  I  have  felt  the  deepest  compas 
sion  for  noble  volumes  in  the  possession  of 
persons  wholly  incapable  of  appreciating 
them.  The  helpless  books  seemed  to  appeal 
to  me  to  rescue  them,  and  too  many  times  I 
have  been  tempted  to  snatch  them  from  their 
inhospitable  shelves,  and  march  them  away 
to  a  pleasant  refuge  beneath  my  own  com 
fortable  roof  tree. 

Too  few  people  seem  to  realize  that  books 
have  feelings.  But  if  I  know  one  thing  bet 
ter  than  another  I  know  this,  that  my  books 

97 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

know  me  and  love  me.  When  of  a  morning 
I  awaken  I  cast  my  eyes  about  my  room  to 
see  how  fare  my  beloved  treasures,  and  as 
I  cry  cheerily  to  them,  "Good-day  to  you, 
sweet  friends!"  how  lovingly  they  beam 
upon  me,  and  how  glad  they  are  that  my 
repose  has  been  unbroken.  When  I  take 
them  from  their  places,  how  tenderly  do 
they  respond  to  the  caresses  of  my  hands, 
and  with  what  exultation  do  they  respond 
unto  my  call  for  sympathy ! 

Laughter  for  my  gayer  moods,  distraction 
for  my  cares,  solace  for  my  griefs,  gossip  for 
my  idler  moments,  tears  for  my  sorrows, 
counsel  for  my  doubts,  and  assurance  against 
my  fears  —  these  things  my  books  give  me 
with  a  promptness  and  a  certainty  and  a 
cheerfulness  which  are  more  than  human; 
so  that  I  were  less  than  human  did  I  not  love 
these  comforters  and  bear  eternal  gratitude 
to  them. 

Judge  Methuen  read  me  once  a  little  poem 
which  I  fancy  mightily;  it  is  entitled  "Win- 
freda,"  and  you  will  find  it  in  your  Percy,  if 
you  have  one.  The  last  stanza,  as  I  recall  it, 
runs  in  this  wise: 

98 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

And  when  by  envy  time  transported 
Shall  seek  to  rob  us  of  our  joys, 

You  '11  in  our  girls  again  be  courted 
And  I  '11  go  wooing  in  our  boys. 

"Now  who  was  the  author  of  those 
lines  ?  "  asked  the  Judge. 

"Undoubtedly  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes," 
said  I.  "They  have  the  flavor  peculiar  to 
our  Autocrat;  none  but  he  could  have  done 
up  so  much  sweetness  in  such  a  quaint  little 
bundle." 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  the  Judge,  "but 
the  mistake  is  a  natural  one.  The  whole 
poem  is  such  a  one  as  Holmes  might  have 
written,  but  it  saw  the  light  long  before  our 
dear  doctor's  day :  what  a  pity  that  its  author 
ship  is  not  known!" 

"  Yet  why  a  pity  ? "  quoth  I.  "Is  it  not 
true  that  words  are  the  only  things  that  live 
forever?  Are  we  not  mortal,  and  are  not 
books  immortal  ?  Homer's  harp  is  broken  and 
Horace's  lyre  is  unstrung,  and  the  voices  of 
the  great  singers  are  hushed ;  but  their  songs 
—  their  songs  are  imperishable.  O  friend! 
what  moots  it  to  them  or  to  us  who  gave 
this  epic  or  that  lyric  to  immortality?  The 
99 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

singer  belongs  to  a  year,  his  song  to  all  time. 
I  know  it  is  the  custom  now  to  credit  the 
author  with  his  work,  for  this  is  a  utilitarian 
age,  and  all  things  are  by  the  pound  or  the 
piece,  and  for  so  much  money. 

"So  when  a  song  is  printed  it  is  printed 
in  small  type,  and  the  name  of  him  who  wrote 
it  is  appended  thereunto  in  big  type.  If  the 
song  be  meritorious  it  goes  to  the  corners 
of  the  earth  through  the  medium  of  the  art 
preservative  of  arts,  but  the  longer  and  the 
farther  it  travels  the  bigger  does  the  type  of 
the  song  become  and  the  smaller  becomes 
the  type  wherein  the  author's  name  is 
set. 

"Then,  finally,  some  inconsiderate  hand, 
wielding  the  pen  or  shears,  blots  out  or 
snips  off  the  poet's  name,  and  henceforth  the 
song  is  anonymous.  A  great  iconoclast  — 
a  royal  old  iconoclast  —  is  Time :  but  he  hath 
no  terrors  for  those  precious  things  which 
are  embalmed  in  words,  and  the  only  fellow 
that  shall  surely  escape  him  till  the  crack  of 
doom  is  he  whom  men  know  by  the  name 
of  Anonymous! " 

"Doubtless  you  speak  truly,"  said  the 

IOO 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC  /     ;  ,,  jJj 

Judge;  "yet  it  would  be  different  if  I  but 
had  the  ordering  of  things.  I  would  let 
the  poets  live  forever  and  I  would  kill  off 
most  of  their  poetry. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  Ritson  and  Percy 
quarrelled.  It  was  his  misfortune  that  Ritson 
quarrelled  with  everybody.  Yet  Ritson  was 
a  scrupulously  honest  man;  he  was  so  vul 
garly  sturdy  in  his  honesty  that  he  would 
make  all  folk  tell  the  truth  even  though  the 
truth  were  of  such  a  character  as  to  bring  the 
blush  of  shame  to  the  devil's  hardened  cheek. 

On  the  other  hand,  Percy  believed  that 
there  were  certain  true  things  which  should 
not  be  opened  out  in  the  broad  light  of  day ; 
it  was  this  deep-seated  conviction  which 
kept  him  from  publishing  the  manuscript 
folio,  a  priceless  treasure,  which  Ritson  never 
saw  and  which,  had  it  fallen  in  Ritson's  way 
instead  of  Percy's,  would  have  been  clapped 
at  once  into  the  hands  of  the  printer. 

How  fortunate  it  is  for  us  that  we  have  in 
our  time  so  great  a  scholar  as  Francis  James 
Child,  so  enamored  of  balladry  and  so  learned 
in  it,  to  complete  and  finish  the  work  of  his 
predecessors.  I  count  myself  happy  that  I 

101 


THE  1OVE  AFFAIRS  OF 


have  -h'earcT  from  the  lips  of  this  enthusiast 
several  of  the  rarest  and  noblest  of  the  old 
British  and  old  Scottish  ballads;  and  I  recall 
with  pride  that  he  complimented  me  upon 
my  spirited  vocal  rendering  of  "  Burd  Isabel 
and  Sir  Patrick,"  "Langjohnny  More,"  ''The 
Duke  o'  Gordon's  Daughter,"  and  two  or 
three  other  famous  songs  which  I  had  learned 
while  sojourning  among  the  humbler  classes 
in  the  North  of  England. 

After  paying  our  compliments  to  the  Robin 
Hood  garlands,  to  Scott,  to  Kirkpatrick 
Sharpe,  to  Ritson,  to  Buchan,  to  MotherwelL 
to  Laing,  to  Christie,  to  Jamieson,  and  to  the 
other  famous  lovers  and  compilers  of  bal 
ladry,  we  fell  to  discoursing  of  French  song 
and  of  the  service  that  Francis  Mahony  per 
formed  for  English-speaking  humanity  when 
he  exploited  in  his  inimitable  style  those 
lyrics  of  the  French  and  the  Italian  people 
which  are  now  ours  as  much  as  they  are 
anybody  else's. 

Dear  old  Beranger!  what  wonder  that 
Prout  loved  him,  and  what  wonder  that  we 
all  love  him  ?  I  have  thirty  odd  editions 
of  his  works,  and  I  would  walk  farther  to 


102 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

pick  up  a  volume  of  his  lyrics  than  I  would 
walk  to  secure  any  other  book,  excepting 
of  course  a  Horace.  Beranger  and  I  are  old 
cronies.  I  have  for  the  great  master  a  par 
ticularly  tender  feeling,  and  all  on  account 
of  Fanchonette. 

But  there  —  you  know  nothing  of  Fan 
chonette,  because  I  have  not  told  you  of  her. 
She,  too,  should  have  been  a  book  instead  of 
the  dainty,  coquettish  Gallic  maiden  that  she 
was. 


103 


antJ 
* 


IX 


BOOKSELLERS    AND    PRINTERS,    OLD 

AND    NEW 

T  UDGE  Methuen  tells  me  that  he  fears  what  I 
I  have  said  about  my  bookseller  will  create 
the  impression  that  I  am  unkindly  disposed 
toward  the  bookselling  craft.  For  the  last 
fifty  years  I  have  had  uninterrupted  dealings 
with  booksellers,  and  none  knows  better 
than  the  booksellers  themselves  that  I  par 
ticularly  admire  them  as  a  class.  Visitors 
to  my  home  have  noticed  that  upon  my 
walls  are  hung  noble  portraits  of  Caxton, 
Wynkin  de  Worde,  Richard  Pynson,  John 
Wygthe,  Rayne  Wolfe,  John  Daye,  Jacob 
Tonson,  Richard  Johnes,  John  Dunton,  and 
other  famous  old  printers  and  booksellers. 

I  have,  too,  a  large  collection  of  portraits 
of  modern  booksellers,  including  a  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  of  Quaritch,  a  line  engraving  of 
Rimell,  and  a  very  excellent  etching  of  my 
107 


THE  LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

dear  friend,  the  late  Henry  Stevens.  One 
of  the  portraits  is  a  unique,  for  I  had  it 
painted  myself,  and  I  have  never  permitted 
any  copy  to  be  made  of  it;  it  is  of  my  book 
seller,  and  it  represents  him  in  the  garb  of  a 
fisherman,  holding  his  rod  and  reel  in  one 
hand  and  the  copy  of  the  "Compleat  An 
gler"  in  the  other. 

Mr.  Curwen  speaks  of  booksellers  as  being 
''singularly  thrifty,  able,  industrious,  and 
persevering  —  in  some  few  cases  singularly 
venturesome,  liberal,  and  kind-hearted." 
My  own  observation  and  experience  have 
taught  me  that  as  a  class  booksellers  are  ex 
ceptionally  intelligent,  ranking  with  printers 
in  respect  to  the  variety  and  extent  of  their 
learning. 

They  have,  however,  this  distinct  advan 
tage  over  the  printers  —  they  are  not  brought 
in  contact-with  the  manifold  temptations  to 
intemperance  and  profligacy  which  environ 
the  votaries  of  the  art  preservative  of  arts. 
Horace  Smith  has  said  that  "were  there  no 
readers  there  certainly  would  be  no  writers; 
clearly,  therefore,  the  existence  of  writers 
depends  upon  the  existence  of  readers:  and, 
1 08 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

of  course,  since  the  cause  must  be  antece 
dent  to  the  effect,  readers  existed  before 
writers.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  if  there 
were  no  writers  there  could  be  no  readers; 
so  it  would  appear  that  writers  must  be  an 
tecedent  to  readers." 

It  amazes  me  that  a  reasoner  so  shrewd, 
so  clear,  and  so  exacting  as  Horace  Smith 
did  not  pursue  the  proposition  further;  for 
without  booksellers  there  would  have  been 
no  market  for  books  —  the  author  would 
not  have  been  able  to  sell,  and  the  reader 
would  not  have  been  able  to  buy. 

The  further  we  proceed  with  the  investi 
gation  the  more  satisfied  we  become  that  the 
original  man  was  three  of  number,  one  of 
him  being  the  bookseller,  who  established 
friendly  relations  between  the  other  two  of 
him,  saying:  "  I  will  serve  you  both  by  in 
citing  both  a  demand  and  a  supply."  So 
then  the  author  did  his  part,  and  the  reader 
his,  which  I  take  to  be  a  much  more  dig 
nified  scheme  than  that  suggested  by  Darwin 
and  his  school  of  investigators. 

By  the  very  nature  of  their  occupation 
booksellers  are  broad-minded ;  their  associa- 
109 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

tion  with  every  class  of  humanity  and  their 
constant  companionship  with  books  give 
them  a  liberality  that  enables  them  to  view 
with  singular  clearness  and  dispassionateness 
every  phase  of  life  and  every  dispensation  of 
Providence.  They  are  not  always  practical, 
for  the  development  of  the  spiritual  and  in 
tellectual  natures  in  man  does  not  at  the 
same  time  promote  dexterity  in  the  use  of 
the  baser  organs  of  the  body;  I  have  known 
philosophers  who  could  not  harness  a  horse 
or  even  shoo  chickens. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  once  consumed 
several  hours'  time  trying  to  determine  whe 
ther  he  should  trundle  a  wheelbarrow  by 
pushing  it  or  by  pulling  it.  A.  Bronson 
Alcott  once  tried  to  construct  a  chicken  coop, 
and  he  had  boarded  himself  up  inside  the 
structure  before  he  discovered  that  he  had 
not  provided  for  a  door  or  for  windows. 
We  have  all  heard  the  story  of  Isaac  New 
ton —  how  he  cut  two  holes  in  his  study- 
door,  a  large  one  for  his  cat  to  enter  by,  and 
a  small  one  for  the  kitten. 

This  unworldliness  —  this  impossibility, 
if  you  please  —  is  characteristic  of  intellectual 


A  BIBLIOMANIAC 

progression.  Judge  Methuen's  second  son  is 
named  Grolier;  and  the  fact  that  he  does  n't 
know  enough  to  come  in  out  of  the  rain 
has  inspired  both  the  Judge  and  myself  with 
the  conviction  that  in  due  time  Grolier  will 
become  a  great  philosopher. 

The  mention  of  this  revered  name  reminds 
me  that  my  bookseller  told  me  the  other  day 
that  just  before  I  entered  his  shop  a  wealthy 
patron  of  the  arts  and  muses  called  with  a 
volume  which  he  wished  to  have  rebound. 

"I  can  send  it  to  Paris  or  to  London," 
said  my  bookseller.  ' '  If  you  have  no  choice 
of  binder,  I  will  entrust  it  to  Zaehnsdorf  with 
instructions  to  lavish  his  choicest  art  upon 
it." 

"But  indeed  I  have  a  choice,"  cried  the 
plutocrat,  proudly.  -"I  noticed  a  large  num 
ber  of  Grolier  bindings  at  the  Art  Institute 
last  week,  and  I  want  something  of  the  same 
kind  myself.  Send  the  book  to  Grolier,  and 
tell  him  to  do  his  prettiest  by  it,  for  I  can 
stand  the  expense,  no  matter  what  it  is." 

Somewhere  in  his  admirable  discourse  old 
Walton  has  stated  the  theory  that  an  angler 
must  be  born  and  then  made.  I  have  always 
in 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

held  the  same  to  be  true  of  the  bookseller. 
There  are  many,  too  many,  charlatans  in  the 
trade ;  the  simon-pure  bookseller  enters  upon 
and  conducts  bookselling  not  merely  as  a 
trade  and  for  the  purpose  of  amassing  riches, 
but  because  he  loves  books  and  because  he 
has  pleasure  in  diffusing  their  gracious  in 
fluences. 

Judge  Methuen  tells  me  that  it  is  no  longer 
the  fashion  to  refer  to  persons  or  things  as 
being  "simon-pure"  ;  the  fashion,  as  he 
says,  passed  out  some  years  ago  when  a 
writer  in  a  German  paper  "  was  led  into  an 
amusing  blunder  by  an  English  review.  The 
reviewer,  having  occasion  to  draw  a  distinc 
tion  between  George  and  Robert  Cruikshank, 
spoke  of  the  former  as  the  real  Simon  Pure. 
The  German,  not  understanding  the  allusion, 
gravely  told  his  readers  that  George  Cruik 
shank  was  a  pseudonym,  the  author's  real 
name  being  Simon  Pure." 

This  incident  is  given  in  Henry  B.  Wheat- 
ley's  "Literary  Blunders,"  a  very  charming 
book,  but  one  that  could  have  been  made 
more  interesting  to  me  had  it  recorded  the 
curious  blunder  which  Frederick  Saunders 

112 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

makes  in  his  "  Story  of  Some  Famous  Books. " 
On  page  169  we  find  this  information: 
11  Among  earlier  American  bards  we  instance 
Dana,  whose  imaginative  poem  '  The  Cul 
prit  Fay,'  so  replete  with  poetic  beauty,  is  a 
fairy  tale  of  the  highlands  of  the  Hudson. 
The  origin  of  the  poem  is  traced  to  a  con 
versation  with  Cooper,  the  novelist,  and 
Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  the  poet,  who,  speak 
ing  of  the  Scottish  streams  and  their  legen 
dary  associations,  insisted  that  the  American 
rivers  were  not  susceptible  of  like  poetic 
treatment.  Dana  thought  otherwise,  and  to 
make  his  position  good  produced  three  days 
after  this  poem." 

It  may  be  that  Saunders  wrote  the  name 
Drake,  for  it  was  Joseph  Rodman  Drake  who 
did  "  The  Culprit  Fay."  Perhaps  it  was  the 
printer's  fault  that  the  poem  is  accredited  to 
Dana.  Perhaps  Mr.  Saunders  writes  so  leg 
ible  a  hand  that  the  printers  are  careless  with 
his  manuscript. 

"  There  is,"  says  Wheatley,  "  there  is  a 
popular  notion  among  authors  that  it  is  not 
wise  to  write  a  clear  hand.  Me'nage  was 
one  of  the  first  to  express  it.  He  wrote :  '  If 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

you  desire  that  no  mistake  shall  appear  in 
the  works  which  you  publish,  never  send 
well-written  copy  to  the  printer,  for  in  that 
case  the  manuscript  is  given  to  young  ap 
prentices,  who  make  a  thousand  errors; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which  is 
difficult  to  read  is  dealt  with  by  the  master- 
printers.'  ' 

The  most  distressing  blunder  I  ever  read 
in  print  was  maje  at  the  time  of  the  burial 
of  the  famous  antiquary  and  litterateur,  John 
Payne  Collier.  In  the  London  newspapers 
of  Sept.  21,  1883,  it  was  reported  that  "the 
remains  of  the  late  Mr.  John  Payne  Collier 
were  interred  yesterday  in  Bray  churchyard, 
near  Maidenhead,  in  the  presence  of  a  large 
number  of  spectators. "  Thereupon  the  East 
ern  daily  press  published  the  following  re 
markable  perversion:  "The  Bray  Colliery 
Disaster.  The  remains  ofthe  late  John  Payne, 
collier,  were  interred  yesterday  afternoon  in 
the  Bray  churchyard  in  the  presence  of  a 
large  number  of  friends  and  spectators." 

Far  be  it  from  the  book-lover  and  the 
book-collector  to  rail  at  blunders,  for  not 
unfrequently  these  very  blunders  make  books 
114 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

valuable.  Who  cares  for  a  Pine's  Horace 
that  does  not  contain  the  "potest"  error? 
The  genuine  first  edition  of  Hawthorne's 
"  Scarlet  Letter"  is  to  be  determined  by  the 
presence  of  a  certain  typographical  slip  in 
the  introduction.  The  first  edition  of  the 
English  Scriptures  printed  in  Ireland  (1716) 
is  much  desired  by  collectors,  and  simply 
because  of  an  error.  Isaiah  bids  us  "sin  no 
more,"  but  the  Belfast  printer,  by  some 
means  or  another,  transposed  the  letters  in 
such  wise  as  to  make  the  injunction  read 
"sin  on  more." 

The  so-called  Wicked  Bible  is  a  book  that 
is  seldom  met  with,  and,  therefore,  in  great 
demand.  It  was  printed  in  the  time  of 
Charles  I.,  and  it  is  notorious  because  it 
omits  the  adverb  ' '  not "  in  its  version  of  the 
seventh  commandment;  the  printers  were 
fined  a  large  sum  for  this  gross  error.  Six 
copies  of  the  Wicked  Bible  are  known  to  be 
in  existence.  At  one  time  the  late  James 
Lenox  had  two  copies;  in  his  interesting 
memoirs  Henry  Stevens  tells  how  he  picked 
up  one  copy  in  Paris  for  fifty  guineas. 

Rabelais'  printer  got  the  satirical  doctor 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

into  deep  water  for  printing  asne  for  ame; 
the  council  of  the  Sorbonne  took  the  matter 
up  and  asked  Francis  I.  to  prosecute  Rabelais 
for  heresy;  this  the  king  declined  to  do,  and 
Rabelais  proceeded  forthwith  to  torment  the 
council  for  having  founded  a  charge  of  heresy 
upon  a  printer's  blunder. 

Once  upon  a  time  the  Foulis  printing  es 
tablishment  at  Glasgow  determined  to  print 
a  perfect  Horace;  accordingly  the  proof 
sheets  were  hung  up  at  the  gates  of  the  uni 
versity,  and  a  sum  of  money  was  paid  for 
every  error  detected. 

Notwithstanding  these  precautions  the 
edition  had  six  uncorrected  errors  in  it  when 
it  was  finally  published.  Disraeli  says  that 
the  so-called  Pearl  Bible  had  six  thousand 
errata!  The  works  of  Picus  of  Mirandula, 
Strasburg,  1 507,  gave  a  list  of  errata  cover 
ing  fifteen  folio  pages,  and  a  worse  case  is 
that  of  "Missaeac  Missalis  Anatomia"(i56i), 
a  volume  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-two 
pages,  fifteen  of  which  are  devoted  to  the 
errata.  The  author  of  the  Missae  felt  so 
deeply  aggrieved  by  this  array  of  blunders 
that  he  made  a  public  explanation  to  the 
116 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

effect  that  the  devil  himself  stole  the  manu 
script,  tampered  with  it,  and  then  actually 
compelled  the  printer  to  misread  it. 

I  am  not  sure  that  this  ingenious  explana 
tion  did  not  give  origin  to  the  term  of 
11  printer's  devil." 

It  is  frightful  to  think 

What  nonsense  sometimes 
They  make  of  one's  sense 

And,  what  's  worse,  of  one's  rhymes. 

It  was  only  last  week, 

In  my  ode  upon  spring, 
Which  I  meant  to  have  made 

A  most  beautiful  thing, 

When  I  talked  of  the  dewdrops 

From  freshly  blown  roses, 
The  nasty  things  made  it 

From  freshly  blown  noses. 

We  can  fancy  Richard  Person's  rage  (for 
Person  was  of  violent  temper)  when,  having 
written  the  statement  that  "the  crowd  rent 
the  air  with  their  shouts,"  his  printer  made 
the  line  read  "the  crowd  rent  the  air  with 
their  snouts."  However,  this  error  was  a 
natural  one,  since  it  occurs  in  the ' '  Catechism 
117 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

of  the  Swinish  Multitude. "  Royalty  only  are 
privileged  when  it  comes  to  the  matter  of 
blundering.  When  Louis  XIV.  was  a  boy 
he  one  day  spoke  of  "un  carosse "  ;  he 
should  have  said  "  une  carosse,"  but  he  was 
king,  and  having  changed  the  gender  of 
carosse  the  change  was  accepted,  and  unto 
this  day  carosse  is  masculine. 

That  errors  should  occur  in  newspapers 
is  not  remarkable,  for  much  of  the  work  in 
a  newspaper  office  is  done  hastily.  Yet 
some  of  these  errors  are  very  amusing.  I 
remember  to  have  read  in  a  Berlin  newspaper 
a  number  of  years  ago  that  "  Prince  Bismarck 
is  trying  to  keep  up  honest  and  straightfor 
ward  relations  with  all  the  girls  "  (madchen). 

This  statement  seemed  incomprehensible 
until  it  transpired  that  the  word  "  madchen  " 
was  in  this  instance  a  misprint  for  "mach- 
ten,"  a  word  meaning  all  the  European 
powers. 


118 


jpamfconme  2?etoitctjcti 


WHEN     FANCHONETTE     BEWITCHED 
ME 

THE  garden  in  which  I  am  straying  has 
so  many  diversions  to  catch  my  eye, 
to  engage  my  attention  and  to  inspire  remi 
niscence  that  I  find  it  hard  to  treat  of  its  beau 
ties  methodically.  I  find  myself  wandering 
up  and  down,  hither  and  thither,  in  so  irre 
sponsible  a  fashion  that  I  marvel  you  have 
not  abandoned  me  as  the  most  irrational  of 
madmen. 

Yet  how  could  it  be  otherwise?  All 
around  me  I  see  those  things  that  draw  me 
from  the  pathway  I  set  out  to  pursue :  like  a 
heedless  butterfly  I  flit  from  this  sweet  unto 
that,  glorying  and  revelling  in  the  sunshine 
and  the  posies.  There  is  little  that  is  selfish 
in  a  love  like  this,  and  herein  we  have  an 
other  reason  why  the  passion  for  books  is 
beneficial.  He  who  loves  women  must  and 

121 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

should  love  some  one  woman  above  the  rest, 
and  he  has  her  to  his  keeping,  which  I  esteem 
to  be  one  kind  of  selfishness. 

But  he  who  truly  loves  books  loves  all 
books  alike,  and  not  only  this,  but  it  grieves 
him  that  all  other  men  do  not  share  with 
him  this  noble  passion.  Verily,  this  is  the 
most  unselfish  of  loves ! 

To  return  now  to  the  matter  of  booksellers, 
I  would  fain  impress  you  with  the  excellences 
of  the  craft,  for  I  know  their  virtues.  My 
association  with  them  has  covered  so  long  a 
period  and  has  been  so  intimate  that  even  in 
a  vast  multitude  of  people  I  have  no  diffi 
culty  in  determining  who  are  the  booksellers 
and  who  are  not. 

For,  having  to  do  with  books,  these  men 
in  due  time  come  to  resemble  their  wares 
not  only  in  appearance  but  als6  in  conversa 
tion.  My  bookseller  has  dwelt  so  long  in 
his  corner  with  folios  and  quartos  and  other 
antique  tomes  that  he  talks  in  black-letter 
and  has  the  modest,  engaging  look  of  a 
brown  old  stout  binding,  and  to  the  delecta 
tion  of  discriminating  olfactories  he  exhaleth 
an  odor  of  mildew  and  of  tobacco  com- 

122 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

mingled,  which  is  more  grateful  to  the  true 
bibliophile  than  all  the  perfumes  of  Araby. 

I  have  studied  the  craft  so  diligently  that 
by  merely  clapping  my  eyes  upon  a  book 
seller  I  can  tell  you  with  certainty  what  man 
ner  of  books  he  sells;  but  you  must  know 
that  the  ideal  bookseller  has  no  fads,  being 
equally  proficient  in  and  a  lover  of  all  spheres, 
departments,  branches,  and  lines  of  his  art. 
He  is,  moreover,  of  a  benignant  nature,  and 
he  denies  credit  to  none;  yet,  withal,  he  is 
righteously  so  discriminating  that  he  lets  the 
poor  scholar  have  for  a  paltry  sum  that  which 
the  rich  parvenu  must  pay  dearly  for.  He  is 
courteous  and  considerate  where  courtesy 
and  consideration  are  most  seemly. 

Samuel  Johnson  once  rolled  into  a  London 
bookseller's  shop  to  ask  for  literary  employ 
ment.  The  bookseller  scrutinized  his  burly 
frame,  enormous  hands,  coarse  face,  and 
humble  apparel. 

"You  would  make  a  better  porter,"  said 
he. 

This  was  too  much  for  the  young  lexico 
grapher's  patience.  He  picked  up  a  folio  and 
incontinently  let  fly  at  the  bookseller's  head, 
123 


THE  LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

and  then  stepping  over  the  prostrate  victim 
he  made  his  exit,  saying:  "Lie  there,  thou 
lump  of  lead!" 

This  bookseller  was  Osborne,  who  had  a 
shop  at  Gray's  Inn  Gate.  To  Boswell  John 
son  subsequently  explained:  "Sir,  he  was 
impertinent  to  me,  and  I  beat  him." 

Jacob  Tonson  was  Dryden's  bookseller; 
in  the  earlier  times  a  seller  was  also  a  pub 
lisher  of  books.  Dryden  was  not  always  on 
amiable  terms  with  Tonson,  presumably  be 
cause  Dryden  invariably  was  in  debt  to  Ton- 
son.  On  one  occasion  Dryden  asked  for  an 
advance  of  money,  but  Tonson  refused  upon 
the  grounds  that  the  poet's  overdraft  already 
exceeded  the  limits  of  reasonableness.  There 
upon  Dryden  penned  the  following  lines 
and  sent  them  to  Tonson  with  the  message 
that  he  who  wrote  these  lines  could  write 
more : 

With  leering  looks,  bull-faced  and  freckled  fair, 
With  two  left  legs,  with  Judas-colored  hair, 
And  frowzy  pores  that  taint  the  ambient  air. 

These  lines  wrought  the  desired  effect:  Ton- 
son  sent  the  money  which  Dryden  had  asked 
124 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

for.  When  Dryden  died  Tonson  made  over 
tures  to  Pope,  but  the  latter  soon  went  over 
to  Tonson's  most  formidable  rival,  Bernard 
Lintot.  On  one  occasion  Pope  happened  to 
be  writing  to  both  publishers,  and  by  a 
curious  blunder  he  inclosed  to  each  the  letter 
intended  for  the  other.  In  the  letter  meant 
for  Tonson,  he  said  that  Lintot  was  a  scoun 
drel,  and  in  the  letter  meant  for  Lintot  he 
declared  that  Tonson  was  an  old  rascal.  We 
can  fancy  how  little  satisfaction  Messrs.  Lin 
tot  and  Tonson  derived  from  the  perusal  of 
these  missent  epistles. 

Andrew  Millar  was  the  publisher  who  had 
practical  charge  of  the  production  of  John 
son's  dictionary.  It  seems  that  Johnson  drew 
out  his  stipulated  honorarium  of  eight  thou 
sand  dollars  (to  be  more  exact,  ,£1575)  be 
fore  the  dictionary  went  to  press;  this  is  not 
surprising,  for  the  work  of  preparation  con 
sumed  eight  years,  instead  of  three,  as  John 
son  had  calculated.  Johnson  inquired  of  the 
messenger  what  Millar  said  when  he  re 
ceived  the  last  batch  of  copy.  The  messen 
ger  answered :  "  He  said  '  Thank  God  I  have 
done  with  him.'  "  This  made  Johnson  smile. 
125 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

"I   am   glad,"  said   he,  quietly,   ''that   he 
thanks  God  for  anything." 

I  was  not  done  with  my  discourse  when 
a  book  was  brought  in  from  Judge  Methuen ; 
the  interruption  was  a  pleasant  one.  "I 
was  too  busy  last  evening, "  writes  the  judge, 
"to  bring  you  this  volume  which  I  picked 
up  in  a  La  Salle  street  stall  yesterday.  I 
know  your  love  for  the  scallawag  Villon,  so 
I  am  sure  you  will  fancy  the  lines  which, 
evidently,  the  former  owner  of  this  book  has 
scribbled  upon  the  fly-leaf."  Fancy  them  ? 
Indeed  I  do;  and  if  you  dote  on  the  "scal 
lawag  "  as  I  dote  on  him  you  also  will  de 
clare  that  our  anonymous  poet  has  not 
wrought  ill. 

FRANCOIS    VILLON 

If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I, 

What  would  it  matter  to  me  how  the  time  might  drag 

or  fly? 
He  would  in  sweaty  anguish  toil  the  days  and  nights 

away, 
And  still  not  keep  the  prowling,  growling,  howling  wolf 

at  bay ! 

But,  with  my  valiant  bottle  and  my  frouzy  brevet-bride, 
And  my  score  of  loyal  cut-throats  standing  guard  for  me 

outside, 

126 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

What  worry  of  the  morrow  would  provoke  a  casual  sigh 
If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I  ? 

If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I, 

To  yonder  gloomy  boulevard  at  midnight  I  would  hie  ; 

"Stop,  stranger !  and  deliver  your  possessions,  ere  you 

feel 

The  mettle  of  my  bludgeon  or  the  temper  of  my  steel !  " 
He  should  give  me  gold  and  diamonds,  his  snuff-box  and 

his  cane  — 
"Now  back,  my  boon  companions,  to  our  bordel  with 

our  gain  !  " 
And,  back  within  that  brothel,  how  the  bottles  they 

would  fly, 
If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I  ! 

If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I, 

We  both  would  mock  the  gibbet  which  the  law  has 

lifted  high  ; 

He  in  his  meagre,  shabby  home,  /  in  my  roaring  den  — 
He  with  his  babes  around  him,  /  with  my  hunted  men  ! 
His  virtue  be  his  bulwark  —  my  genius  should  be  mine  !  — 
"  Go,  fetch  my  pen,  sweet  Margot,  and  a  jorum  of  your 

wine  ! 


So  would  one  vainly  plod,  and  one  win  immortality — 
If  I  were  Francois  Villon  and  Francois  Villon  I  ! 

My  acquaintance  with  Master  Villon  was 
made  in  Paris  during  my  second  visit  to  that 

127 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

fascinating  capital,  and  for  a  while  I  was  un 
der  his  spell  to  that  extent  that  I  would  read 
no  book  but  his,  and  I  made  journeys  to 
Rouen,  Tours,  Bordeaux,  and  Poitiers  for  the 
purpose  of  familiarizing  myself  with  the 
spots  where  he  had  lived,  and  always  under 
the  surveillance  of  the  police.  In  fact,  I  be 
came  so  infatuated  of  Villonism  that  at  one 
time  I  seriously  thought  of  abandoning  my 
self  to  a  life  of  crime  in  order  to  emulate  in 
certain  particulars  at  least  the  example  of 
my  hero. 

There  were,  however,  hindrances  to  this 
scheme,  first  of  which  was  my  inability  to 
find  associates  whom  I  wished  to  attach  to 
my  cause  in  the  capacity  in  which  Colin  de 
Cayeulx  and  the  Baron  de  Grigny  served 
Master  Francois.  I  sought  the  companion 
ship  of  several  low-browed,  ill-favored  fel 
lows  whom  I  believed  suited  to  my  pur 
poses,  but  almost  immediately  I  wearied  of 
them,  for  they  had  never  looked  into  a  book 
and  were  so  profoundly  ignorant  as  to  be 
unable  to  distinguish  between  a  folio  and  a 
thirty-twomo. 

Then  again  it  befell  that,  while  the  Villon 
128 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

fever  was  raging  within  and  I  was  con 
templating  a  career  of  vice,  I  had  a  letter 
from  my  uncle  Cephas,  apprising  me  that 
Captivity  Waite  (she  was  now  Mrs.  Eli- 
phalet  Parker)  had  named  her  first-born 
after  me!  This  intelligence  had  the  effect 
of  cooling  and  sobering  me;  I  began  to  re 
alize  that,  with  the  responsibility  the  com 
ing  and  the  christening  of  Captivity's  first 
born  had  imposed  upon  me,  it  behooved 
me  to  guard  with  exceeding  jealousy  the 
honor  of  the  name  which  my  namesake 
bore. 

While  I  was  thus  tempest-tossed,  Fanchon- 
ette  came  across  my  pathway,  and  with  the 
appearance  of  Fanchonette  every  ambition 
to  figure  in  the  annals  of  bravado  left  me. 
Fanchonette  was  the  niece  of  my  landlady; 
her  father  was  a  perfumer;  she  lived  with 
the  old  people  in  the  Rue  des  Capucins. 
She  was  of  middling  stature  and  had  blue 
eyes  and  black  hair.  Had  she  not  been 
French,  she  would  have  been  Irish,  or,  per 
haps,  a  Grecian.  Her  manner  had  an  inde 
finable  charm. 

It  was  she  who  acquainted  me  with  Be- 

I2Q 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

ranger;  that  is  why  I  never  take  up  that 
precious  volume  that  I  do  not  think,  sweetly 
and  tenderly,  of  Fanchonette.  The  book  is 
bound,  as  you  see,  in  a  dainty  blue,  and  the 
border  toolings  are  delicate  tracings  of  white 
—  all  for  a  purpose,  I  can  assure  you.  She 
used  to  wear  a  dainty  blue  gown,  from  be 
hind  the  nether  hem  of  which  the  most  im 
maculate  of  petticoats  peeped  out. 

If  we  were  never  boys,  how  barren  and 
lonely  our  age  would  be.  Next  to  the  inef 
fably  blessed  period  of  youth  there  is  no  time 
of  life  pleasanter  than  that  in  which  serene 
old  age  reviews  the  exploits  and  the  prodi 
gies  of  boyhood.  Ah,  my  gay  fellows,  har 
vest  your  crops  diligently,  that  your  barns 
and  granaries  be  full  when  your  arms  are  no 
longer  able  to  wield  the  sickle! 

Hzec  meminisse  —  to  recall  the  old  time  — 
to  see  her  rise  out  of  the  dear  past  —  to 
hear  Fanchonette's  voice  again  —  to  feel  the 
grace  of  springtime  —  how  gloriously  sweet 
this  is!  The  little  quarrels,  the  reconcilia 
tions,  the  coquetries,  the  jealousies,  the  re 
proaches,  the  forgivenesses  —  all  the  charac 
teristic  and  endearing  haps  of  the  Maytime 

130 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

of  life  —  precious  indeed  are  these  retrospec 
tions  to  the  hungry  eyes  of  age! 

She  wed  with  the  perfumer's  apprentice; 
but  that  was  so  very  long  ago  that  I  can 
pardon,  if  not  forget,  the  indiscretion.  Who 
knows  where  she  is  to-day  ?  Perhaps  a 
granny  beldame  in  a  Parisian  alley;  perhaps 
for  years  asleep  in  Pere  la  Chaise.  Come 
forth,  beloved  Beranger,  and  sing  me  the 
old  song  to  make  me  young  and  strong  and 
brave  again! 

Let  them  be  served  on  gold  — 
The  wealthy  and  the  great; 
Two  lovers  only  want 
A  single  glass  and  plate! 
Ring  ding,  ring  ding, 
Ring  ding  ding  — 
Old  wine,  young  lassie, 
Sing,  boys,  sing! 


of  tfje  2&aciHug  liftrorum 


XI 


DIAGNOSIS  OF  THE   BACILLUS 
LIBRORUM 

FOR  a  good  many  years  I  was  deeply  in 
terested  in  British  politics.  1  was  con 
verted  to  Liberalism,  so-called,  by  an  incident 
which  I  deem  well  worth  relating.  One  af 
ternoon  I  entered  a  book-shop  in  High  Hoi- 
born,  and  found  that  the  Hon.  William  E. 
Gladstone  had  preceded  me  thither.  I  had 
never  seen  Mr.  Gladstone  before.  I  recog 
nized  him  now  by  his  resemblance  to  the 
caricatures,  and  by  his  unlikeness  to  the 
portraits  which  the  newspapers  had  printed. 

As  1  entered  the  shop  I  heard  the  booksel 
ler  ask :  ' '  What  books  shall  I  send  ?  " 

To  this,  with  a  very  magnificent  sweep 
of  his  arms  indicating  every  point  of  the 
compass,  Gladstone  made  answer:  "Send 
me  tbose!  " 

'35 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

With  these  words  he  left  the  place,  and  1 
stepped  forward  to  claim  a  volume  which 
had  attracted  my  favorable  attention  several 
days  previous. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  said  the  book 
seller,  politely,  "but  that  book  is  sold." 

"Sold?"  I  cried. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  bookseller,  smiling 
with  evident  pride;  "Mr.  Gladstone  just 
bought  it;  I  have  n't  a  book  for  sale  —  Mr. 
Gladstone  just  bought  them  all!" 

The  bookseller  then  proceeded  to  tell  me 
that  whenever  Gladstone  entered  a  book 
shop  he  made  a  practice  of  buying  everything 
in  sight.  That  magnificent,  sweeping  ges 
ture  of  his  comprehended  everything  —  the 
ology,  history,  social  science,  folk-lore,  med 
icine,  travel,  biography  —  everything  that 
came  to  his  net  was  fish! 

"This  is  the  third  time  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  visited  me,"  said  the  bookseller,  "and 
this  is  the  third  time  he  has  cleaned  me  out." 

"This  man  is  a  good  man,"  says  I  to  my 
self.     "So  notable  a  lover  of  books  surely 
cannot  err.     The  cause  of  home  rule  must 
be  a  just  one  after  all." 
136 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

From  others  intimately  acquainted  with 
him  I  learned  that  Gladstone  was  an  omniv 
orous  reader;  that  he  ordered  his  books  by 
the  cart-load,  and  that  his  home  in  Hawarden 
literally  overflowed  with  books.  He  made 
a  practice,  1  was  told,  of  overhauling  his  li 
brary  once  in  so  often  and  of  weeding  out 
such  volumes  as  he  did  not  care  to  keep. 
These  discarded  books  were  sent  to  the  sec 
ond-hand  dealers,  and  it  is  said  that  the  deal 
ers  not  unfrequently  took  advantage  of  Glad 
stone  by  reselling  him  over  and  over  again 
(and  at  advanced  prices,  too)  the  very  lots 
of  books  he  had  culled  out  and  rejected. 

Every  book-lover  has  his  own  way  of 
buying;  so  there  are  as  many  ways  of  buy 
ing  as  there  are  purchasers.  However, 
Judge  Methuen  and  I  have  agreed  that  all 
buyers  may  be  classed  in  these  following 
specified  grand  divisions: 

The  reckless  buyer. 

The  shrewd  buyer. 

The  timid  buyer. 

Of  these  three  classes  the  third  is  least 
worthy  of  our  consideration,  although  it  in 
cludes  very  many  lovers  of  books,  and  con- 
137 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

sequently  very  many  friends  of  mine.  I  have 
actually  known  men  to  hesitate,  to  ponder, 
to  dodder  for  weeks,  nay,  months  over  the 
purchase  of  a  book;  not  because  they  did 
not  want  it,  nor  because  they  deemed  the 
price  exorbitant,  nor  yet  because  they  were 
not  abundantly  able  to  pay  that  price.  Their 
hesitancy  was  due  to  an  innate,  congenital 
lack  of  determination  —  that  same  hideous 
curse  of  vacillation  which  is  responsible  for 
so  much  misery  in  human  life. 

I  have  made  a  study  of  these  people,  and 
I  find  that  most  of  them  are  bachelors  whose 
state  of  singleness  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  same  hesitancy  which  has  deprived  them 
of  many  a  coveted  volume  has  operated  to 
their  discomfiture  in  the  matrimonial  sphere. 
While  they  deliberated,  another  bolder  than 
they  came  along  and  walked  off  with  the 
prize. 

One  of  the  gamest  buyers  I  know  of  was 
the  late  John  A.  Rice  of  Chicago.  As  a 
competitor  at  the  great  auction  sales  he  was 
invincible;  and  why?  Because,  having  de 
termined  to  buy  a  book,  he  put  no  limit  to 
the  amount  of  his  bid.  His  instructions  to 
138 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

his  agent  were  in  these  words:  "I  must 
have  those  books,  no  matter  what  they 
cost." 

An  English  collector  found  in  Rice's  li 
brary  a  set  of  rare  volumes  he  had  been 
searching  for  for  years. 

"How did  you  happen  to  get  them  ? "  he 
asked.  "You  bought  them  at  the  Spencer 
sale  and  against  my  bid.  Do  you  know,  I 
told  my  buyer  to  bid  a  thousand  pounds 
for  them,  if  necessary!" 

"That  was  where  I  had  the  advantage  of 
you,"  said  Rice,  quietly.  "I  specified  no 
limit;  1  simply  told  my  man  to  buy  the 
books." 

The  spirit  of  the  collector  cropped  out 
early  in  Rice.  I  remember  to  have  heard 
him  tell  how  one  time,  when  he  was  a  young 
man,  he  was  shuffling  over  a  lot  of  tracts  in 
a  bin  in  front  of  a  Boston  bookstall.  His 
eye  suddenly  fell  upon  a  little  pamphlet  en 
titled  "The  Cow-Chace."  He  picked  it  up 
and  read  it.  It  was  a  poem  founded  upon 
the  defeat  of  Generals  Wayne,  Irving,  and 
Proctor.  The  last  stanza  ran  in  this 
wise: 

139 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

And  now  I  've  closed  my  epic  strain, 

I  tremble  as  I  show  it, 
Lest  this  same  warrior-drover,  Wayne, 

Should  ever  catch  the  poet. 

Rice  noticed  that  the  pamphlet  bore  the 
imprint  of  James  Rivington,  New  York, 
1780.  It  occurred  to  him  that  some  time 
this  modest  tract  of  eighteen  pages  might  be 
valuable ;  at  any  rate,  he  paid  the  fifteen  cents 
demanded  for  it,  and  at  the  same  time  he 
purchased  for  ten  cents  another  pamphlet 
entitled  "The  American  Tories,  a  Satire." 

Twenty  years  later,  having  learned  the 
value  of  these  exceedingly  rare  tracts,  Mr. 
Rice  sent  them  to  London  and  had  them 
bound  in  Francis  Bedford's  best  style  — 
"crimson  crushed  levant  morocco,  finished 
to  a  Grolier  pattern."  Bedford's  charges 
amounted  to  seventy-five  dollars,  which  with 
the  original  cost  of  the  pamphlets  represented 
an  expenditure  of  seventy-five  dollars  and 
twenty-five  cents  upon  Mr.  Rice's  part.  At 
the  sale  of  the  Rice  library  in  1870,  however, 
this  curious,  rare,  and  beautiful  little  book 
brought  the  extraordinary  sum  of  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars! 
140 


A   BBLIOMANIAC 

The  Rice  library  contained  about  five  thous 
and  volumes,  and  it  realized  at  auction  sale 
somewhat  more  than  seventy-two  thousand 
dollars.  Rice  has  often  told  me  that  for  a 
longtime  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
part  with  his  books;  yet  his  health  was  so 
poor  that  he  found  it  imperative  to  retire 
from  business,  and  to  devote  a  long  period 
of  time  to  travel;  these  were  the  considera 
tions  that  induced  him  finally  to  part  with 
his  treasures  "  I  have  never  regretted  hav 
ing  sold  them/  he  said.  "Two  years  after 
the  sale  the  Chicago  fire  came  along.  Had 
I  retained  those  books,  every  one  of  them 
would  have  been  lost." 

Mrs.  Rice  shared  her  husband's  enthusi 
asm  for  books.  Whenever  a  new  invoice 
arrived,  the  two  would  lock  themselves  in 
their  room,  get  down  upon  their  knees  on 
the  floor,  open  the  box,  take  out  the  trea 
sures  and  gloat  over  them,  together!  Noble 
lady!  she  was  such  a  wife  as  any  good  man 
might  be  proud  of.  They  were  very  happy 
in  their  companionship  on  earth,  were  my 
dear  old  friends.  He  was  the  first  to  go; 
their  separation  was  short;  together  once 
141 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

more  and  forever  they  share  the  illimitable 
joys  which  await  all  lovers  of  good  books 
when  virtue  hath  mournfully  writ  the  colo 
phon  to  their  human  careers. 

Although  Mr.  Rice  survived  the  sale  of  his 
remarkable  library  a  period  of  twenty-six 
years,  he  did  not  get  together  again  a  col 
lection  of  books  that  he  was  willing  to  call 
a  library.  His  first  collection  was  so  re 
markable  that  he  preferred  to  have  his  fame 
rest  wholly  upon  it.  Perhaps  he  was  wise; 
yet  how  few  collectors  there  are  who  would 
have  done  as  he  did. 

As  for  myself,  I  verily  believe  that,  if  by 
fire  or  by  water  my  library  should  be  de 
stroyed  this  night,  1  should  start  in  again 
to-morrow  upon  the  collection  of  another 
library.  Or  if  I  did  not  do  this,  I  should  lay 
myself  down  to  die,  for  how  could  I  live 
without  the  companionships  to  which  I  have 
ever  been  accustomed,  and  which  have 
grown  as  dear  to  me  as  life  itself? 

Whenever  Judge  Methuen  is  in  a  jocular 

mood  and  wishes  to  tease  me,  he  asks  me 

whether  I  have  forgotten  the  time  when  I 

was  possessed  of  a  spirit  of  reform  and  re- 

142 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

gistered  a  solemn  vow  in  high  heaven  to 
buy  no  more  books.  Teasing,  says  Victor 
Hugo,  is  the  malice  of  good  men;  Judge 
Methuen  means  no  evil  when  he  recalls  that 
weakness  —  the  one  weakness  in  all  my 
career. 

No,  I  have  not  forgotten  that  time;  1  look 
back  upon  it  with  a  shudder  of  horror,  for 
wretched  indeed  would  have  been  my  exis 
tence  had  I  carried  into  effect  the  project  I 
devised  at  that  remote  period! 

Dr.  O'Rell  has  an  interesting  theory  which 
you  will  find  recorded  in  the  published  pro 
ceedings  of  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences 
(vol.  xxxiv.,  p.  216).  Or,  if  you  cannot  pro 
cure  copies  of  that  work,  it  may  serve  your 
purpose  to  know  that  the  doctor's  theory  is 
to  this  effect  —  viz., that  bibliomania  does  not 
deserve  the  name  of  bibliomania  until  it  is 
exhibited  in  the  second  stage.  For  second 
ary  bibliomania  there  is  no  known  cure;  the 
few  cases  reported  as  having  been  cured 
were  doubtless  not  bibliomania  at  all,  or,  at 
least,  were  what  we  of  the  faculty  call  false 
or  chicken  bibliomania. 

"In  false  bibliomania,  which,"  says  Dr. 

'43 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

O'Reil,  "is  the  primary  stage  of  the  grand 
passion  —  the  vestibule  to  the  main  edifice 
—  the  usual  symptoms  are  flushed  cheeks, 
sparkling  eyes,  a  bounding  pulse,  and  quick 
respiration.  This  period  of  exaltation  is  not 
unfrequently  followed  by  a  condition  of  col 
lapse  in  which  we  find  the  victim  pale,  pulse 
less,  and  dejected.  He  is  pursued  and  tor 
mented  of  imaginary  horrors,  he  reproaches 
himself  for  imaginary  crimes,  and  he  implores 
piteously  for  relief  from  fancied  dangers. 
The  sufferer  now  stands  in  a  slippery  place ; 
unless  his  case  is  treated  intelligently  he  will 
issue  from  that  period  of  gloom  cured  of  the 
sweetest  of  madnesses,  and  doomed  to  a 
life  of  singular  uselessness. 

"But  properly  treated,"  continues  Dr. 
O'Reil,  "  and  particularly  if  his  spiritual  needs 
be  ministered  to,  he  can  be  brought  safely 
through  this  period  of  collapse  into  a  condi 
tion  of  reenforced  exaltation,  which  is  the 
true,  or  secondary  stage  of,  bibliomania,  and 
for  which  there  is  no  cure  known  to  hu 
manity." 

I  should  trust  Dr.  O'Rell's  judgment  in 
this  matter,  even  if  I  did  not  know  from  ex- 
144 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

perience  that  it  was  true.  For  Dr.  O'Rell  is 
the  most  famous  authority  we  have  in  bibli 
omania  and  kindred  maladies.  It  is  he  (I 
make  the  information  known  at  the  risk  of 
offending  the  ethics  of  the  profession)  —  it 
is  he  who  discovered  the  bacillus  librorum, 
and,  what  is  still  more  important  and  still 
more  to  his  glory,  it  is  he  who  invented  that 
subtle  lymph  which  is  now  everywhere  em 
ployed  by  the  profession  as  a  diagnostic 
where  the  presence  of  the  germs  of  biblio 
mania  (in  other  words,  bacilli  librorum)  is 
suspected. 

I  once  got  this  learned  scientist  to  inject  a 
milligram  of  the  lymph  into  the  femoral  ar 
tery  of  Miss  Susan's  cat.  Within  an  hour 
the  precocious  beast  surreptitiously  entered 
my  library  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  and 
ate  the  covers  of  my  pet  edition  of  Rabelais. 
This  demonstrated  to  Dr.  O'Rell's  satisfac 
tion  the  efficacy  of  his  diagnostic,  and  it 
proved  to  Judge  Methuen's  satisfaction  what 
the  Judge  has  always  maintained  —  viz.,  that 
Rabelais  was  an  old  rat. 


* 
€f>e  Peaguceg  of 

* 


XII 

THE    PLEASURES  OF  EXTRA- 
ILLUSTRATION 

VERY  many  years  ago  we  became  con 
vinced — Judge  Methuen  and  I  did  — 
that  there  was  nothing  new  in  the  world. 
I  think  it  was  while  we  were  in  London 
and  while  we  were  deep  in  the  many  fads  of 
bibliomania  that  we  arrived  at  this  important 
conclusion. 

We  had  been  pursuing  with  enthusiasm 
the  exciting  delights  of  extra-illustration,  a 
practice  sometimes  known  as  Grangerism; 
the  friends  of  the  practice  call  it  by  the  for 
mer  name,  the  enemies  by  the  latter.  We 
were  engaged  at  extra-illustrating  Boswell's 
life  of  Johnson,  and  had  already  got  together 
somewhat  more  than  eleven  thousand  prints 
when  we  ran  against  a  snag,  an  obstacle  we 
149 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

never  could  surmount.  We  agreed  that  our 
work  would  be  incomplete,  and  therefore 
vain,  unless  we  secured  a  picture  of  the  book 
with  which  the  great  lexicographer  knocked 
down  Osborne,  the  bookseller  at  Gray's  Inn 
Gate. 

Unhappily  we  were  wholly  in  the  dark  as 
to  what  the  title  of  that  book  was,  and,  al 
though  we  ransacked  the  British  Museum 
and  even  appealed  to  the  learned  Frognall 
Dibdin,  we  could  not  get  a  clew  to  the  iden 
tity  of  the  volume.  To  be  wholly  frank  with 
you,  I  will  say  that  both  the  Judge  and  1  had 
wearied  of  the  occupation;  moreover,  it  in 
volved  great  expense,  since  we  were  content 
with  nothing  but  India  proofs  (those  before 
letters  preferred).  So  we  were  glad  of  this 
excuse  for  abandoning  the  practice. 

While  we  were  contemplating  a  graceful 
retreat  the  Judge  happened  to  discover  in  the 
"Natural  History"  of  Pliny  a  passage  which 
proved  to  our  satisfaction  that,  so  far  from 
being  a  new  or  a  modern  thing,  the  extra- 
illustration  of  books  was  of  exceptional  anti 
quity.  It  seems  that  Atticus,  the  friend  of 
Cicero,  wrote  a  book  on  the  subject  of  por- 
150 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

traits  and  portrait-painting,  in  the  course  of 
which  treatise  he  mentions  that  Marcus  Varro 
"conceived  the  very  liberal  idea  of  inserting, 
by  some  means  or  another,  in  his  numerous 
volumes,  the  portraits  of  several  hundred  in 
dividuals,  as  he  could  not  bear  the  idea  that 
all  traces  of  their  features  should  be  lost  or 
that  the  lapse  of  centuries  should  get  the 
better  of  mankind." 

"Thus,"  says  Pliny,  "was  he  the  inven 
tor  of  a  benefit  to  his  fellow-men  that  might 
have  been  envied  by  the  gods  themselves; 
for  not  only  did  he  confer  immortality  upon 
the  originals  of  these  portraits,  but  he  trans 
mitted  these  portraits  to  all  parts  of  the  earth, 
so  that  everywhere  it  might  be  possible  for 
them  to  be  present,  and  for  each  to  occupy 
his  niche." 

Now,  Pliny  is  not  the  only  one  who  has 
contributed  to  the  immortalization  of  Marcus 
Varro.  1  have  had  among  my  papers  for 
thirty  years  the  verses  which  Judge  Methuen 
dashed  off  (for  poets  invariably  dash  off  their 
poetry),  and  they  are  such  pleasant  verses 
that  I  don't  mind  letting  the  world  see 
them. 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

MARCUS    VARRO 

Marcus  Varro  went  up  and  down 

The  places  where  old  books  were  sold; 
He  ransacked  all  the  shops  in  town 

For  pictures  new  and  pictures  old. 
He  gave  the  folk  of  earth  no  peace; 

Snooping  around  by  day  and  night, 
He  plied  the  trade  in  Rome  and  Greece 

Of  an  insatiate  Grangerite. 


"  Pictures!"  was  evermore  his  cry  — 

"  Pictures  of  old  or  recent  date," 
And  pictures  only  would  he  buy 

Wherewith  to  "extra-illustrate." 
Full  many  a  tome  of  ancient  type 

And  many  a  manuscript  he  took, 
For  nary  purpose  but  to  swipe 

Their  pictures  for  some  other  book. 


While  Marcus  Varro  plied  his  fad 

There  was  not  in  the  shops  of  Greece 
A  book  or  pamphlet  to  be  had 

That  was  not  minus  frontispiece. 
Nor  did  he  hesitate  to  ply 

His  baleful  practices  at  home; 
It  was  not  possible  to  buy 

A  perfect  book  in  all  of  Rome ! 
152 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

What  must  the  other  folk  have  done  — 

Who,  glancing  o'er  the  books  they  bought, 
Came  soon  and  suddenly  upon 

The  vandalism  Varro  wrought! 
How  must  their  cheeks  have  flamed  with  red- 

How  did  their  hearts  with  choler  beat! 
We  can  imagine  what  they  said  — 

We  can  imagine1)  not  repeat! 

Where  are  the  books  that  Varro  made  — 

The  pride  of  dilettante  Rome  — 
With  divers  portraitures  inlaid 

Swiped  from  so  many  another  tome  ? 
The  worms  devoured  them  long  ago  — 

O  wretched  worms!  ye  should  have  fed 
Not  on  the  books  "  extended  "  so, 

But  on  old  Varro's  flesh  instead! 


Alas,  that  Marcus  Varro  lives 

And  is  a  potent  factor  yet! 
Alas,  that  still  his  practice  gives 

Good  men  occasion  for  regret ! 
To  yonder  bookstall,  pri'thee,  go, 

And  by  the  "  missing  "  prints  and  plates 
And  frontispieces  you  shall  know 

He  lives,  and  "  extra-illustrates"  ! 

In  justice  to  the  Judge  and  to  myself  1 
should  say  that  neither  of  us  wholly  ap 
proves  the  sentiment  which  the  poem  I  have 
•53 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

quoted  implies.  We  regard  Grangerism  as 
one  of  the  unfortunate  stages  in  bibliomania ; 
it  is  a  period  which  seldom  covers  more 
than  five  years,  although  Dr.  O'Rell  has  met 
with  one  case  in  his  practice  that  has  lasted 
ten  years  and  still  gives  no  symptom  of 
abating  in  virulence. 

Humanity  invariably  condones  the  pranks 
of  youth  on  the  broad  and  charitable  grounds 
that  "boys  will  be  boys";  so  we  biblio 
maniacs  are  prone  to  wink  at  the  follies  of 
the  Grangerite,  for  we  know  that  he  will 
know  better  by  and  by  and  will  heartily 
repent  of  the  mischief  he  has  done.  We 
know  the  power  of  books  so  well  that  we 
know  that  no  man  can  have  to  do  with 
books  that  presently  he  does  not  love  them. 
He  may  at  first  endure  them;  then  he  may 
come  only  to  pity  them;  anon,  as  surely  as 
the  morrow's  sun  riseth,  he  shall  embrace 
and  love  those  precious  things. 

So  we  say  that  we  would  put  no  curb 
upon  any  man,  it  being  better  that  many 
books  should  be  destroyed,  if  ultimately  by 
that  destruction  a  penitent  and  loyal  soul 
be  added  to  the  roster  of  bibliomaniacs. 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

There  is  more  joy  over  one  Grangerite  that 
repenteth  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just 
men  that  need  no  repentance. 

And  we  have  a  similar  feeling  toward 
such  of  our  number  as  for  the  nonce  be 
come  imbued  with  a  passion  for  any  of  the 
other  little  fads  which  bibliomaniac  flesh  is 
heir  to.  All  the  soldiers  in  an  army  cannot 
be  foot,  or  horse,  or  captains,  or  majors,  or 
generals,  or  artillery,  or  ensigns,  or  drum 
mers,  or  buglers.  Each  one  has  his  place 
to  fill  and  his  part  to  do,  and  the  conse 
quence  is  a  concinnate  whole.  Bibliomania 
is  beautiful  as  an  entirety,  as  a  symmetrical 
blending  of  a  multitude  of  component  parts, 
and  he  is  indeed  disloyal  to  the  cause  who, 
through  envy  or  shortsightedness  or  igno 
rance,  argues  to  the  discredit  of  angling, 
or  Napoleonana,  or  balladry,  or  Indians,  or 
Burns,  or  Americana,  or  any  other  branch 
or  phase  of  bibliomania ;  for  each  of  these 
things  accomplishes  a  noble  purpose  in  that 
each  contributes  to  the  glory  of  the  great 
common  cause  of  bibliomania,  which  is  in 
deed  the  summum  bonum  of  human  life. 

I  have  heard  many  decried  who  indulged 

155 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

their  fancy  for  bookplates,  as  if,  forsooth,  if 
a  man  loved  his  books,  he  should  not  lavish 
upon  them  testimonials  of  his  affection! 
Who  that  loves  his  wife  should  hesitate  to 
buy  adornments  for  her  person  ?  I  favor 
everything  that  tends  to  prove  that  the  hu 
man  heart  is  swayed  by  the  tenderer  emo 
tions.  Gratitude  is  surely  one  of  the  noblest 
emotions  of  which  humanity  is  capable, 
and  he  is  indeed  unworthy  of  our  respect 
who  would  forbid  humanity's  expressing  in 
every  dignified  and  reverential  manner  its 
gratitude  for  the  benefits  conferred  by  the 
companionship  of  books. 

As  for  myself,  I  urge  upon  all  lovers  of 
books  to  provide  themselves  with  book 
plates.  Whenever  I  see  a  book  that  bears 
its  owner's  plate  I  feel  myself  obligated  to 
treat  that  book  with  special  consideration. 
It  carries  with  it  a  certificate  of  its  master's 
love;  the  bookplate  gives  the  volume  a  cer 
tain  status  it  would  not  otherwise  have. 
Time  and  again  I  have  fished  musty  books 
out  of  bins  in  front  of  bookstalls,  bought 
them  and  borne  them  home  with  me  sim 
ply  because  they  had  upon  their  covers  the 
.56 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

bookplates  of  their  former  owners.  I  have 
a  case  filled  with  these  aristocratic  estrays, 
and  I  insist  that  they  shall  be  as  carefully 
dusted  and  kept  as  my  other  books,  and  I 
have  provided  in  my  will  for  their  perpetual 
maintenance  after  my  decease. 

If  I  were  a  rich  man  I  should  found  a 
hospital  for  homeless  aristocratic  books,  an 
institution  similar  in  all  essential  particulars 
to  the  institution  which  is  now  operated  at 
our  national  capital  under  the  bequest  of 
the  late  Mr.  Cochrane.  I  should  name  it 
the  Home  for  Genteel  Volumes  in  Decayed 
Circumstances. 

I  was  a  young  man  when  I  adopted  the 
bookplate  which  I  am  still  using,  and  which 
will  be  found  in  all  my  books.  I  drew  the 
design  myself  and  had  it  executed  by  a  son 
of  Anderson,  the  first  of  American  engravers. 
It  is  by  no  means  elaborate:  a  book  rests 
upon  a  heart,  and  underneath  appear  the 

lines: 

My  Book  and  Heart 
Must  never  part. 

Ah,  little  Puritan  maid,  with  thy  dear  eyes 

of  honest  blue  and  thy  fair  hair  in  proper 

'57 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 


plaits  adown  thy  back,  little  thought  we 
that  springtime  long  ago  back  among  the 
New  England  hills  that  the  tiny  book  we 


read  together  should  follow  me  through  all 
my  life !  What  a  part  has  that  Primer  played ! 
And  now  all  these  other  beloved  companions 
bear  witness  to  the  love  I  bear  that  Primer 
and  its  teachings,  for  each  wears  the  emblem 
I  plucked  from  its  homely  pages. 

That  was  in  the  springtime,  Captivity 
Waite;  anon  came  summer,  with  all  its 
exuberant  glory,  and  presently  the  cheery 
autumn  stole  upon  me.  And  now  it  is  the 
winter-time,  and  under  the  snows  lies  buried 
158 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

many  a  sweet,  fair  thing  I  cherished  once. 
I  am  aweary  and  will  rest  a  little  while;  lie 
thou  there,  my  pen,  for  a  dream  —  a  pleasant 
dream  —  calleth  me  away.  I  shall  see  those 
distant  hills  again,  and  the  homestead  under 
the  elms;  the  old  associations  and  the  old 
influences  shall  be  round  about  me,  and  a 
child  shall  lead  me  and  we  shall  go  together 
through  green  pastures  and  by  still  waters. 
And,  O  my  pen,  it  will  be  the  springtime 
again ! 


159 


XIII 

ON  THE  ODORS  WHICH  MY  BOOKS 
EXHALE 

HAVE  you  ever  come  out  of  the  thick, 
smoky  atmosphere  of  the  town  into 
the  fragrant,  gracious  atmosphere  of  a  li 
brary  ?  If  you  have,  you  know  how  grateful 
the  change  is,  and  you  will  agree  with  me 
when  I  say  that  nothing  else  is  so  quieting 
to  the  nerves,  so  conducive  to  physical  health, 
and  so  quick  to  restore  a  lively  flow  of  the 
spirits. 

Lafcadio  Hearn  once  wrote  a  treatise  upon 
perfumes,  an  ingenious  and  scholarly  per 
formance;  he  limited  the  edition  to  fifty 
copies  and  published  it  privately  —  so  the 
book  is  rarely  met  with.  Curiously  enough, 
however,  this  author  had  nothing  to  say  in 
the  book  about  the  smells  of  books,  which  I 
regard  as  a  most  unpardonable  error,  unless, 
properly  estimating  the  subject  to  be  worthy 
163 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

of  a  separate  treatise,  he  has  postponed  its 
consideration  and  treatment  to  a  time  when 
he  can  devote  the  requisite  study  and  care 
to  it. 

We  have  it  upon  the  authority  of  William 
Blades  that  books  breathe;  however,  the 
testimony  of  experts  is  not  needed  upon  this 
point,  for  if  anybody  be  sceptical,  all  he  has 
to  do  to  convince  himself  is  to  open  a  door 
of  a  bookcase  at  any  time  and  his  olfactories 
will  be  greeted  by  an  outrush  of  odors  that 
will  prove  to  him  beyond  all  doubt  that 
books  do  actually  consume  air  and  exhale 
perfumes. 

Visitors  to  the  British  Museum  complain 
not  unfrequently  that  they  are  overcome  by 
the  closeness  of  the  atmosphere  in  that  place, 
and  what  is  known  as  the  British  Museum 
headache  has  come  to  be  recognized  by  the 
medical  profession  in  London  as  a  specific 
ailment  due  to  the  absence  of  oxygen  in  the 
atmosphere,  which  condition  is  caused  by 
the  multitude  of  books,  each  one  of  which, 
by  that  breathing  process  peculiar  to  books, 
consumes  several  thousand  cubic  feet  of  air 
every  twenty-four  hours. 
.64 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

Professor  Huxley  wondered  for  a  long  time 
why  the  atmosphere  of  the  British  Museum 
should  be  poisonous  while  other  libraries 
were  free  from  the  poison ;  a  series  of  experi 
ments  convinced  him  that  the  presence  of 
poison  in  the  atmosphere  was  due  to  the 
number  of  profane  books  in  the  Museum. 
He  recommended  that  these  poison-engen 
dering  volumes  be  treated  once  every  six 
months  with  a  bath  of  cedria,  which,  as  I 
understand,  is  a  solution  of  the  juices  of  the 
cedar  tree;  this,  he  said,  would  purge  the 
mischievous  volumes  temporarily  of  their 
evil  propensities  and  abilities. 

1  do  not  know  whether  this  remedy  is  ef 
fective,  but  I  remember  to  have  read  in  Pliny 
that  cedria  was  used  by  the  ancients  to  ren 
der  their  manuscripts  imperishable.  When 
Cneius  Terentius  went  digging  in  his  estate 
in  the  Janiculum  he  came  upon  a  coffer 
which  contained  not  only  the  remains  of 
Numa,  the  old  Roman  king,  but  also  the 
manuscripts  of  the  famous  laws  which  Numa 
compiled.  The  king  was  in  some  such 
condition  as  you  might  suppose  him  to  be 
after  having  been  buried  several  centuries, 
165 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

but  the  manuscripts  were  as  fresh  as  new, 
and  their  being  so  is  said  to  have  been  due 
to  the  fact  that  before  their  burial  they  were 
rubbed  with  citrus  leaves. 

These  so-called  books  of  Numa  would  per 
haps  have  been  preserved  unto  this  day  but 
for  the  fanaticism  of  the  people  who  ex 
humed  and  read  them;  they  were  promptly 
burned  by  Quintus  Petilius,  the  praetor,  be 
cause  (as  Cassius  Hemina  explains)  they 
treated  of  philosophical  subjects,  or  because, 
as  Livy  testifies,  their  doctrines  were  inimi 
cal  to  the  religion  then  existing. 

As  I  have  had  little  to  do  with  profane  lit 
erature,  I  know  nothing  of  the  habits  of  such 
books  as  Professor  Huxley  has  prescribed  an 
antidote  against.  Of  such  books  as  I  have 
gathered  about  me  and  made  my  constant 
companions  I  can  say  truthfully  that  a  more 
delectable-flavored  lot  it  were  impossible  to 
find.  As  I  walk  amongst  them,  touching 
first  this  one  and  then  that,  and  regarding 
all  with  glances  of  affectionate  approval,  I 
fancy  that  I  am  walking  in  a  splendid  gar 
den,  full  of  charming  vistas,  wherein  par 
terre  after  parterre  of  beautiful  flowers  is 
166 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 


unfolded  to  my  enraptured  vision ;  and  surely 
there  never  were  other  odors  so  delightful 
as  the  odors  which  my  books  exhale! 


My  garden  aboundeth  in  pleasant  nooks 

And  fragrance  is  over  it  all; 
For  sweet  is  the  smell  of  my  old,  old  books 

In  their  places  against  the  wall. 

Here  is  a  folio  that  's  grim  with  age 
And  yellow  and  green  with  mould; 

There  's  the  breath  of  the  sea  on  every  page 
And  the  hint  of  a  stanch  ship's  hold. 


And  here  is  a  treasure  from  France  la  belle 

Exhaleth  a  faint  perfume 
Of  wedded  lily  and  asphodel 

In  a  garden  of  song  abloom. 

And  this  wee  little  book  of  Puritan  mien 

And  rude,  conspicuous  print 
Hath  the  Yankee  flavor  of  wintergreen, 

Or,  may  be,  of  peppermint. 

In  Walton  the  brooks  a-babbling  tell 
Where  the  cheery  daisy  grows, 

And  where  in  meadow  or  woodland  dwell 
The  buttercup  and  the  rose. 

167 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

But  best  beloved  of  books,  I  ween, 

Are  those  which  one  perceives 
Are  hallowed  by  ashes  dropped  between 

The  yellow,  well-thumbed  leaves. 

For  it 's  here  a  laugh  and  it  's  there  a  tear, 

Till  the  treasured  book  is  read  ; 
And  the  ashes  betwixt  the  pages  here 

Tell  us  of  one  long  dead. 

But  the  gracious  presence  reappears 

As  we  read  the  book  again, 
And  the  fragrance  of  precious,  distant  years 

Filleth  the  hearts  of  men. 

Come,  pluck  with  me  in  my  garden  nooks 

The  posies  that  bloom  for  all; 
Oh,  sweet  is  the  smell  of  my  old,  old  books 

In  their  places  against  the  wall ! 

B.etter  than  flowers  are  they,  these  books 
of  mine !  For  what  are  the  seasons  to  them  ? 
Neither  can  the  drought  of  summer  nor  the 
asperity  of  winter  wither  or  change  them. 
At  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  they 
are  the  same  —  radiant,  fragrant,  hopeful, 
helpful!  There  is  no  charm  which  they  do 
not  possess,  no  beauty  that  is  not  theirs. 

What  wonder  is  it  that  from  time  imme- 
168 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

morial  humanity  has  craved  the  boon  of  car 
rying  to  the  grave  some  book  particularly 
beloved  in  life  ?  Even  Numa  Pompilius  pro 
vided  that  his  books  should  share  his  tomb 
with  him.  Twenty-four  of  these  precious 
volumes  were  consigned  with  him  to  the 
grave.  When  Gabriel  Rossetti's  wife  died, 
the  poet  cast  into  her  open  grave  the  unfin 
ished  volume  of  his  poems,  that  being  the 
last  and  most  precious  tribute  he  could  pay 
to  her  cherished  memory. 

History  records  instance  after  instance  of 
the  consolation  dying  men  have  received 
from  the  perusal  of  books,  and  many  a  one 
has  made  his  end  holding  in  his  hands  a  par 
ticularly  beloved  volume.  The  reverence 
which  even  unlearned  men  have  for  books 
appears  in  these  splendid  libraries  which  are 
erected  now  and  again  with  funds  provided 
by  the  wills  of  the  illiterate.  How  dreadful 
must  be  the  last  moments  of  that  person 
who  has  steadfastly  refused  to  share  the 
companionship  and  acknowledge  the  saving 
grace  of  books! 

Such,  indeed,  is  my  regard  for  these  friend 
ships  that  it  is  with  misery  that  I  contemplate 
169 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

the  probability  of  separation  from  them  by 
and  by.  I  have  given  my  friends  to  under 
stand  that  when  I  am  done  with  earth  cer 
tain  of  my  books  shall  be  buried  with  me. 
The  list  of  these  books  will  be  found  in  the 
left-hand  upper  drawer  of  the  old  mahog 
any  secretary  in  the  front  spare  room. 

When  I  am  done, 

I  'd  have  no  son 
Pounce  on  these  treasures  like  a  vulture  ; 

Nay,  give  them  half 

My  epitaph 
And  let  them  share  in  my  sepulture. 

Then  when  the  crack 

Of  doom  rolls  back 
The  marble  and  the  earth  that  hide  me, 

I  '11  smuggle  home 

Each  precious  tome 
Without  a  fear  a  wife  shall  chide  me. 

The  dread  of  being  separated  by  death 
from  the  objects  of  one's  love  has  pursued 
humanity  from  the  beginning.  The  Hindoos 
used  to  have  a  selfish  fashion  of  requiring 
their  widows  to  be  entombed  alive  with 
their  corpses.  The  North  American  Indian 
170 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

insists  that  his  horse,  his  bow  and  arrows, 
his  spear,  and  his  other  cherished  trinkets 
shall  share  his  grave  with  him. 

My  sister,  Miss  Susan,  has  provided  that 
after  her  demise  a  number  of  her  most  prized 
curios  shall  be  buried  with  her.  The  list,  as 
I  recall  it,  includes  a  mahogany  four-post 
bedstead,  an  Empire  dresser,  a  brass  warm 
ing-pan,  a  pair  of  brass  andirons,  a  Louis 
Quinze  table,  a  Mayflower  teapot,  a  Tomb 
of  Washington  platter,  a  pewter  tankard, 
a  pair  of  her  grandmother's  candlesticks,  a 
Paul  Revere  lantern,  a  tall  Dutch  clock,  a 
complete  suit  of  armor  purchased  in  Rome, 
and  a  collection  of  Japanese  bric-a-brac  pre 
sented  to  Miss  Susan  by  a  returned  mis 
sionary. 

I  do  not  see  what  Miss  Susan  can  possibly 
do  with  all  this  trumpery  in  the  hereafter, 
but,  if  I  survive  her,  I  shall  certainly  insist 
upon  a  compliance  with  her  wishes,  even 
though  it  involve  the  erection  of  a  tumulus 
as  prodigious  as  the  pyramid  of  Cheops. 


171 


anb 


XIV 

ELZEVIRS  AND   DIVERS  OTHER 
MATTERS 

BOSWELL'S  "Life  of  Johnson"  and  Lock- 
hart's  "Life  of  Scott"  are  accepted  as 
the  models  of  biography.  The  third  re 
markable  performance  in  this  line  is  Mrs. 
Gordon's  memoir  of  her  father,  John  Wilson, 
a  volume  so  charmingly  and  tenderly  written 
as  to  be  of  interest  to  those  even  who  know 
and  care  little  about  that  era  in  the  history 
of  English  literature  in  which  "  crusty  Chris 
topher  "  and  his  associates  in  the  making  of 
"Blackwood's"  figured. 

It  is  a  significant  fact,  I  think,  that  the 
three  greatest  biographers  the  world  has 
known  should  have  been  Scotch;  it  has  long 
been  the  fashion  to  laugh  and  to  sneer  at 
what  is  called  Scotch  dulness;  yet  what 
prodigies  has  not  Scotch  genius  performed 

'75 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

in  every  department  of  literature,  and  would 
not  our  literature  be  poor  indeed  to-day  but 
for  the  contributions  which  have  been  made 
to  it  by  the  very  people  whom  we  affect  to 
deride  ? 

John  Wilson  was  one  of  the  most  inter 
esting  figures  of  a  time  when  learning  was 
at  a  premium ;  he  was  a  big  man  amongst 
big  men,  and  even  in  this  irreverential  time 
genius  uncovers  at  the  mention  of  his  name. 
His  versatility  was  astounding;  with  equal 
facility  and  felicity  he  could  conduct  a  liter 
ary  symposium  and  a  cock-fight,  a  theolog 
ical  discussion  and  an  angling  expedition, 
a  historical  or  a  political  inquiry  and  a  fisti 
cuffs. 

Nature  had  provided  him  with  a  mighty 
brain  in  a  powerful  body;  he  had  a  physique 
equal  to  the  performance  of  what  suggestion 
soever  his  splendid  intellectuals  made.  To 
him  the  incredible  feat  of  walking  seventy 
miles  within  the  compass  of  a  day  was  mere 
child's  play;  then,  when  the  printer  became 
clamorous,  he  would  immure  himself  in  his 
wonderful  den  and  reel  off  copy  until  that 
printer  cried  "Hold;  enough!"  It  was  no 
176 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

unusual  thing  for  him  to  write  for  thirteen 
hours  at  a  stretch;  when  he  worked  he 
worked,  and  when  he  played  he  played  — 
that  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  he  was  never 
a  dull  boy. 

Wilson  seems  to  have  been  a  procrasti- 
nator.  He  would  put  off  his  task  to  the  very 
last  moment;  this  is  a  practice  that  is  com 
mon  with  literary  men  —  in  fact,  it  was  en 
couraged  by  those  who  were  regarded  as 
authorities  in  such  matters  anciently.  Rin- 
gelbergius  gave  this  advice  to  an  author  un 
der  his  tuition : 

"Tell  the  printers,"  said  he,  "to  make 
preparations  for  a  work  you  intend  writing, 
and  never  alarm  yourself  about  it  because 
it  is  not  even  begun,  for,  after  having  an 
nounced  it  you  may  without  difficulty  trace 
out  in  your  own  head  the  whole  plan  of 
your  work  and  its  divisions,  after  which  com 
pose  the  arguments  of  the  chapters,  and  I 
can  assure  you  that  in  this  manner  you  may 
furnish  the  printers  daily  with  more  copy 
than  they  want.  But,  remember,  when  you 
have  once  begun  there  must  be  no  flagging 
till  the  work  is  finished." 

'77 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

The  loyalty  of  human  admiration  was 
never  better  illustrated  than  in  Shelton  Mac 
kenzie's  devotion  to  Wilson's  genius.  To 
Mackenzie  we  are  indebted  for  a  compilation 
of  the  ''Noctes  Ambrosianse,"  edited  with 
such  discrimination,  such  ability,  such  learn 
ing,  and  such  enthusiasm  that,  it  seems  to 
me,  the  work  must  endure  as  a  monument 
not  only  to  Wilson's  but  also  to  Mackenzie's 
genius. 

I  have  noticed  one  peculiarity  that  distin 
guishes  many  admirers  of  the  Noctes:  they 
seldom  care  to  read  anything  else;  in  the 
Noctes  they  find  a  response  to  the  demand 
of  every  mood.  It  is  much  the  same  way 
with  lovers  of  Father  Prout.  Dr.  O'Rell  di 
vides  his  adoration  between  old  Kit  North 
and  the  sage  of  Watergrass  Hill.  To  be 
bitten  of  either  mania  is  bad  enough ;  when 
one  is  possessed  at  the  same  time  of  a  pas 
sion  both  for  the  Noctes  and  for  the  Reliques 
hopeless  indeed  is  his  malady!  Dr.  O'Rell 
is  so  deep  under  the  spell  of  crusty  Christo 
pher  and  the  Corkonian  pere  that  he  not 
only  buys  every  copy  of  the  Noctes  and  of 
the  Reliques  he  comes  across,  but  insists 
178 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

upon  giving  copies  of  these  books  to  every 
body  in  his  acquaintance.  I  have  even  known 
him  to  prescribe  one  or  the  other  of  these 
works  to  patients  of  his. 

I  recall  that  upon  one  occasion,  having 
lost  an  Elzevir  at  a  book  auction,  I  was  af 
flicted  with  melancholia  to  such  a  degree 
that  I  had  to  take  to  my  bed.  Upon  my 
physician's  arrival  he  made,  as  is  his  custom, 
a  careful  inquiry  into  my  condition  and  into 
the  causes  inducing  it.  Finally,  "You  are 
afflicted,"  said  Dr.  O'Rell,  "with  the  me 
grims,  which,  fortunately,  is  at  present  con 
fined  to  the  region  of  the  Pacchionian  de 
pressions  of  the  sinister  parietal.  I  shall  ad 
minister  Father  Front's  '  Rogueries  of  Tom 
Moore'  (pronounced  More)  and  Kit  North's 
debate  with  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  upon  the 
subject  of  sawmon.  No  other  remedy  will 
prove  effective." 

The  treatment  did,  in  fact,  avail  me,  for 
within  forty-eight  hours  I  was  out  of  bed, 
and  out  of  the  house;  and,  what  is  better 
yet,  I  picked  up  at  a  bookstall,  for  a  mere 
song,  a  first  edition  of  "  Special  Providences 
in  New  England"! 

179 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Never,  however,  have  I  wholly  ceased  to 
regret  the  loss  of  the  Elzevir,  for  an  Elzevir 
is  to  me  one  of  the  most  gladdening  sights 
human  eye  can  rest  upon.  In  his  life  of  the 
elder  Aldus,  Renouard  says:  "  How  few  are 
there  of  those  who  esteem  and  pay  so  dearly 
for  these  pretty  editions  who  know  that  the 
type  that  so  much  please  them  are  the  work 
of  Francis  Garamond,  who  cast  them  one 
hundred  years  before  at  Paris." 

In  his  bibliographical  notes  (a  volume  sel 
dom  met  with  now)  the  learned  William 
Davis  records  that  Louis  Elzevir  was  the  first 
who  observed  the  distinction  between  the  v 
consonant  and  the  u  vowel,  which  distinc 
tion,  however,  had  been  recommended  long 
before  by  Ramus  and  other  writers,  but  had 
never  been  regarded.  There  were  five  of 
these  Elzevirs,  viz. :  Louis,  Bonaventure, 
Abraham,  Louis,  Jr.,  and  Daniel. 

A  hundred  years  ago  a  famous  bibliophile 
remarked:  "The  diminutiveness  of  a  large 
portion,  and  the  beauty  of  the  whole,  of  the 
classics  printed  by  the  Elzevirs  at  Leyden 
and  Amsterdam  have  long  rendered  them 
justly  celebrated,  and  the  prices  they  bear  in 
1 80 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

public  sales  sufficiently  demonstrate  the  es 
timation  in  which  they  are  at  present  held." 

The  regard  for  these  precious  books  still 
obtains,  and  we  meet  with  it  in  curiously 
out-of-the-way  places,  as  well  as  in  those 
libraries  where  one  would  naturally  expect 
to  find  it.  My  young  friend  Irving  Way 
(himself  a  collector  of  rare  enthusiasm)  tells 
me  that  recently  during  a  pilgrimage  through 
the  state  of  Texas  he  came  upon  a  gentleman 
who  showed  him  in  his  modest  home  the 
most  superb  collection  of  Elzevirs  he  had 
ever  set  eyes  upon ! 

How  far-reaching  is  thy  grace,  O  biblio 
mania!  How  good  and  sweet  it  is  that 
no  distance,  no  environment,  no  poverty,  no 
distress  can  appall  or  stay  thee.  Like  that 
grim  spectre  we  call  death,  thou  knockest 
impartially  at  the  palace  portal  and  at  the 
cottage  door.  And  it  seemeth  thy  especial 
delight  to  bring  unto  the  lonely  in  desert 
places  the  companionship  that  exalteth  hu 
manity! 

It  makes  me  groan  to  think  of  the  number 
of  Elzevirs  that  are  lost  in  the  libraries  of  rich 
parvenus  who  know  nothing  of  and  care  no- 
181 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

thing  for  the  treasures  about  them  further 
than  a  certain  vulgar  vanity  which  is  involved. 
When  Catherine  of  Russia  wearied  of  Koritz 
she  took  to  her  affection  one  Kimsky  Kossa- 
kof,  a  sergeant  in  the  guards.  Kimsky  was 
elated  by  this  sudden  acquisition  of  favor 
and  riches.  One  of  his  first  orders  was  to 
his  bookseller.  Said  he  to  that  worthy: 
"  Fit  me  up  a  handsome  library;  little  books 
above  and  great  ones  below." 

It  is  narrated  of  a  certain  British  warrior 
that  upon  his  retirement  from  service  he 
bought  a  library  en  bloc,  and,  not  knowing 
any  more  about  books  than  a  peccary  knows 
of  the  harmonies  of  the  heavenly  choir,  he 
gave  orders  for  the  arrangement  of  the 
volumes  in  this  wise:  "Range  me,"  he 
quoth,  "the  grenadiers  (folios)  at  the  bot 
tom,  the  battalion  (octavos)  in  the  mid 
dle,  and  the  light-bobs  (duodecimos)  at  the 
top!" 

Samuel  Johnson,  dancing  attendance  upon 
Lord  Chesterfield,  could  hardly  have  felt  his 
humiliation  more  keenly  than  did  the  histo 
rian  Gibbon  when  his  grace  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  met  him  bringing  the  third  vol- 
182 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

ume  of  his  "Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Ro 
man  Empire"  to  the  ducal  mansion.  This 
history  was  originally  printed  in  quarto; 
Gibbon  was  carrying  the  volume  and  an 
ticipating  the  joy  of  the  duke  upon  its  ar 
rival.  What  did  the  duke  say  ?  "  What  ?" 

he  cried.  "Ah,  another big  square 

book,  eh  ?" 

It  is  the  fashion  nowadays  to  harp  upon 
the  degeneracy  of  humanity;  to  insist  that 
taste  is  corrupted,  and  that  the  faculty  of  ap 
preciation  is  dead.  We  seem  incapable  of 
realizing  that  this  is  the  golden  age  of  au 
thors,  if  not  the  golden  age  of  authorship. 

In  the  good  old  days  authors  were  in  fact 
a  despised  and  neglected  class.  The  Greeks 
put  them  to  death,  as  the  humor  seized  them. 
For  a  hundred  years  after  his  death  Shake 
speare  was  practically  unknown  to  his  coun 
trymen,  except  Suckling  and  his  coterie: 
during  his  life  he  was  roundly  assailed  by 
his  contemporaries,  one  of  the  latter  going 
to  the  extreme  of  denouncing  him  as  a  daw 
that  strutted  in  borrowed  plumage.  Milton 
was  accused  of  plagiarism,  and  one  of  his 
critics  devoted  many  years  to  compiling 
183 


THE    LOVE    AFFAIRS   OF 

from  every  quarter  passages  in  ancient  works 
which  bore  a  similarity  to  the  blind  poet's 
verses.  Even  Samuel  Johnson's  satire  of 
"  London"  was  pronounced  a  plagiarism. 

The  good  old  days  were  the  days,  seem 
ingly,  when  th-e  critics  had  their  way  and 
ran  things  with  a  high  hand ;  they  made  or 
unmade  books  and  authors.  They  killed 
Chatterton,  just  as,  some  years  later,  they 
hastened  the  death  of  Keats.  For  a  time 
they  were  all-powerful.  It  was  not  until 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  these 
professional  tyrants  began  to  lose  their  grip, 
and  when  Byron  took  up  the  lance  against 
them  their  doom  was  practically  sealed. 

Who  would  care  a  picayune  in  these  de 
generate  days  what  Dr.  Warburton  said  pro 
or  con  a  book?  It  was  Warburton  (then 
Bishop  of  Gloucester)  who  remarked  of 
Granger's  ''Biographical  History  of  Eng 
land  "  that  it  was  "  an  odd  one."  This  was 
as  high  a  compliment  as  he  ever  paid  a  book ; 
those  which  he  did  not  like  he  called  sad 
books,  and  those  which  he  fancied  he  called 
odd  ones. 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  through  the 
184 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

diffusion  of  knowledge  and  the  multiplicity 
and  cheapness  of  books  people  generally 
have  reached  the  point  in  intelligence  where 
they  feel  warranted  in  asserting  their  ability 
to  judge  for  themselves.  So  the  occupation 
of  the  critic,  as  interpreted  and  practised  of 
old,  is  gone. 

Reverting  to  the  practice  of  lamenting  the 
degeneracy  of  humanity,  I  should  say  that  the 
fashion  is  by  no  means  a  new  one.  Search 
the  records  of  the  ancients  and  you  will  find 
the  same  harping  upon  the  one  string  of 
present  decay  and  former  virtue.  Herodotus, 
Sallust,  Csesar,  Cicero,  and  Pliny  take  up  and 
repeat  the  lugubrious  tale  in  turn. 

Upon  earth  there  are  three  distinct  classes 
of  men :  Those  who  contemplate  the  past, 
those  who  contemplate  the  present,  those 
who  contemplate  the  future.  1  am  of  those 
who  believe  that  humanity  progresses,  and 
it  is  my  theory  that  the  best  works  of  the 
past  have  survived  and  come  down  to  us 
in  these  books  which  are  our  dearest  legacies, 
our  proudest  possessions,  and  our  best-be 
loved  companions. 


185 


ttjat 


ant" 


XV 

A   BOOK  THAT   BRINGS  SOLACE 
AND   CHEER 

ONE  of  my  friends  had  a  mania  for 
Bunyan  once  upon  a  time,  and,  al 
though  he  has  now  abandoned  that  fad  for 
the  more  fashionable  passion  of  Napoleonana, 
he  still  exhibits  with  evident  pride  the  many 
editions  of  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  he  gath 
ered  together  years  ago.  I  have  frequently 
besought  him  to  give  me  one  of  his  copies, 
which  has  a  curious  frontispiece  illustrating 
the  dangers  besetting  the  traveller  from  the 
City  of  Destruction  to  the  Celestial  City. 
This  frontispiece,  which  is  prettily  illumi 
nated,  occurs  in  Virtue's  edition  of  the  "Pil 
grim's  Progress  " ;  the  book  itself  is  not  rare, 
but  it  is  hardly  procurable  in  perfect  condi 
tion,  for  the  reason  that  the  colored  plate  is 
so  pleasing  to  the  eye  that  few  have  been  able 
to  resist  the  temptation  to  make  away  with  it. 
189 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

For  similar  reasons  it  is  seldom  that  we 
meet  with  a  perfect  edition  of  Quarles' 
"Emblems";  indeed,  an  "Emblems "of early 
publication  that  does  not  lack  the  title-page 
is  a  great  rarity.  In  the  "good  old  days," 
when  juvenile  books  were  few,  the  works  of 
Bunyan  and  of  Quarles  were  vastly  popular 
with  the  little  folk,  and  little  fingers  wrought 
sad  havoc  with  the  title-pages  and  the  pic 
tures  that  with  their  extravagant  and  vivid 
suggestions  appealed  so  directly  and  pow 
erfully  to  the  youthful  fancy. 

Coleridge  says  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress" 
that  it  is  the  best  summary  of  evangelical 
Christianity  ever  produced  by  a  writer  not 
miraculously  inspired.  Froude  declares  that 
it  has  for  two  centuries  affected  the  spiritual 
opinions  of  the  English  race  in  every  part  of 
the  world  more  powerfully  than  any  other 
book,  except  the  Bible.  "It  is,"  says  Ma- 
caulay, ' '  perhaps  the  only  book  about  which, 
after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  the  edu 
cated  minority  has  come  over  to  the  opinion 
of  the  common  people." 

Whether  or  not  Bunyan  is,  as  D'Israeli  has 
called  him,  the  Spenser  of  the  people,  and 
190 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

whether  or  not  his  work  is  the  poetry  of 
Puritanism,  the  best  evidence  of  the  merit 
of  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  appears,  as  Dr. 
Johnson  has  shrewdly  pointed  out,  in  the 
general  and  continued  approbation  of  man 
kind.  Southey  has  critically  observed  that 
to  his  natural  style  Bunyan  is  in  some  degree 
beholden  for  his  general  popularity,  his  lan 
guage  being  everywhere  level  to  the  most 
ignorant  reader  and  to  the  meanest  capacity; 
"there  is  a  homely  reality  about  it  —  a  nur 
sery  tale  is  not  more  intelligible,  in  its  man 
ner  of  narration,  to  a  child." 

Another  cause  of  his  popularity,  says 
Southey,  is  that  he  taxes  the  imagination  as 
little  as  the  understanding.  "  The  vividness 
of  his  own,  which,  as  history  shows,  some 
times  could  not  distinguish  ideal  impressions 
from  actual  ones,  occasioned  this.  He  saw 
the  things  of  which  he  was  writing  as  dis 
tinctly  with  his  mind's  eye  as  if  they  were, 
indeed,  passing  before  him  in  a  dream." 

It  is  clear  to  me  that  in  his  youth  Bunyan 

would  have  endeared  himself  to  me  had  I 

lived  at  that  time,  for  his  fancy  was  of  that 

kind  and  of  such  intensity  as  I  delight  to  find 

191 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

in  youth.  "  My  sins,"  he  tells  us,  "  did  so 
offend  the  Lord  that  even  in  my  childhood 
He  did  scare  and  affright  me  with  fearful 
dreams  and  did  terrify  me  with  dreadful  vi 
sions.  I  have  been  in  my  bed  greatly  af 
flicted,  while  asleep,  with  apprehensions  of 
devils  and  wicked  spirits,  who  still,  as  I  then 
thought,  labored  to  draw  me  away  with 
them,  of  which  I  could  never  be  rid." 

It  is  quite  likely  that  Bunyan  overestimated 
his  viciousness.  One  of  his  ardent,  intense 
temperament  having  once  been  touched  of 
the  saving  grace  could  hardly  help  recog 
nizing  in  himself  the  most  miserable  of  sin 
ners.  It  is  related  that  upon  one  occasion 
he  was  going  somewhere  disguised  as  a 
wagoner,  when  he  was  overtaken  by  a  con 
stable  who  had  a  warrant  for  his  arrest. 

"Do  you  know  that  devil  of  a  fellow 
Bunyan  ?  "  asked  the  constable. 

"  Know  him  ?"  cried  Bunyan.  You  might 
call  him  a  devil  indeed,  if  you  knew  him  as 
well  as  I  once  did!  " 

This  was  not  the  only  time  his  wit  served 
him  to  good  purpose.  On  another  occasion 
a  certain  Cambridge  student,  who  was  filled 
192 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

with  a  sense  of  his  own  importance,  under 
took  to  prove  to  him  what  a  divine  thing 
reason  was,  and  he  capped  his  argument 
with  the  declaration  that  reason  was  the 
chief  glory  of  man  which  distinguished  him 
from  a  beast.  To  this  Bunyan  calmly  made 
answer:  ''Sin distinguishes  man  from  beast; 
is  sin  divine?" 

Frederick  Saunders  observes  that,  like 
Milton  in  his  blindness,  Bunyan  in  his  im 
prisonment  had  his  spiritual  perception 
made  all  the  brighter  by  his  exclusion  from 
the  glare  of  the  outside  world.  And  of  the 
great  debt  of  gratitude  we  all  owe  to  "the 
wicked  tinker  of  Elstow  "  Dean  Stanley  has 
spoken  so  truly  that  I  am  fain  to  quote  his 
words:  "We  all  need  to  be  cheered  by  the 
help  of  Greatheart  and  Standfast  and  Val- 
iant-for-the-Truth,  and  good  old  Honesty! 
Some  of  us  have  been  in  Doubting  Castle, 
some  in  the  Slough  of  Despond.  Some 
have  experienced  the  temptations  of  Vanity 
Fair;  all  of  us  have  to  climb  the  Hill  of 
Difficulty;  all  of  us  need  to  be  instructed 
by  the  Interpreter  in  the  House  Beautiful; 
all  of  us  bear  the  same  burden ;  all  of  us 

'93 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

need  the  same  armor  in  our  fight  with 
Apollyon;  all  of  us  have  to  pass  through 
the  Wicket  Gate  —  to  pass  through  the 
dark  river,  and  for  all  of  us  (if  God  so  will) 
there  wait  the  shining  ones  at  the  gates  of 
the  Celestial  City!  Who  does  not  love  to 
linger  over  the  life  story  of  the  'immortal 
dreamer'  as  one  of  those  characters  for 
whom  man  has  done  so  little  and  God  so 
much  ?" 

About  my  favorite  copy  of  the  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress"  many  a  pleasant  reminiscence 
lingers,  for  it  was  one  of  the  books  my 
grandmother  gave  my  father  when  he  left 
home  to  engage  in  the  great  battle  of  life; 
when  my  father  died  this  thick,  dumpy  lit 
tle  volume,  with  its  rude  cuts  and  poorly 
printed  pages,  came  into  my  possession.  1 
do  not  know  what  part  this  book  played 
in  my  father's  life,  but  I  can  say  for  myself 
that  it  has  brought  me  solace  and  cheer  a 
many  times. 

The  only  occasion  upon  which  I  felt  bit 
terly  toward  Dr.  O'Rell  was  when  that  per 
sonage  observed  in  my  hearing  one  day 
that  Bunyan  was  a  dyspeptic,  and  that  had 
194 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

he  not  been  one  he  would  doubtless  never 
have  written  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress." 

I  took  issue  with  the  doctor  on  this  point; 
whereupon  he  cited  those  visions  and 
dreams,  which,  according  to  the  light  of 
science  as  it  now  shines,  demonstrate  that 
Bunyan's  digestion  must  have  been  morbid. 
And,  forthwith,  he  overwhelmed  me  with 
learned  instances  from  Galen  and  Hippo 
crates,  from  Spurzheim  and  Binns,  from 
Locke  and  Beattie,  from  Malebranche  and 
Bertholini,  from  Darwin  and  Descartes,  from 
Charlevoix  and  Berkeley,  from  Heraclitus 
and  Blumenbach,  from  Priestley  and  Aber- 
crombie;  in  fact,  forsooth,  he  quoted  me  so 
many  authorities  that  it  verily  seemed  to  me 
as  though  the  whole  world  were  against  me ! 

I  did  not  know  until  then  that  Dr.  O'Rell 
had  made  a  special  study  of  dreams,  of  their 
causes  and  of  their  signification.  I  had  al 
ways  supposed  that  astrology  was  his  par 
ticular  hobby,  in  which  science  I  will  con 
cede  him  to  be  deeply  learned,  even  though 
he  has  never  yet  proved  to  my  entire  satis 
faction  that  the  reason  why  my  copy  of 
Justinian  has  faded  from  a  royal  purple  to  a 
'95 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

pale  blue  is,  first,  because  the  binding  was 
renewed  at  the  wane  of  the  moon  and  when 
Sirius  was  in  the  ascendant,  and,  secondly, 
because  (as  Dr.  O'Rell  has  discovered)  my 
binder  was  born  at  a  moment  fifty-six  years 
ago  when  Mercury  was  in  the  fourth  house 
and  Herschel  and  Saturn  were  aspected  in 
conjunction,  with  Sol  at  his  northern  dec 
lination. 

Dr.  O'Rell  has  frequently  expressed  sur 
prise  that  I  have  never  wearied  of  and  drifted 
away  from  the  book-friendships  of  my  earlier 
years.  Other  people,  he  says,  find,  as  time 
elapses,  that  they  no  longer  discover  those 
charms  in  certain  books  which  attracted 
them  so  powerfully  in  youth.  "We  have 
in  our  earlier  days,"  argues  the  doctor, 
"friendships  so  dear  to  us  that  we  would 
repel  with  horror  the  suggestion  that  we 
could  ever  become  heedless  or  forgetful 
of  them ;  yet,  alas,  as  we  grow  older  we 
gradually  become  indifferent  to  these  first 
friends,  and  we  are  weaned  from  them  by 
other  friendships;  there  even  comes  a  time 
when  we  actually  wonder  how  it  were  pos 
sible  for  us  to  be  on  terms  of  intimacy  with 
196 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

such  or  such  a  person.  We  grow  away 
from  people,  and  in  like  manner  and  for 
similar  reasons  we  grow  away  from  books." 
Is  it  indeed  possible  for  one  to  become 
indifferent  to  an  object  he  has  once  loved  ? 
I  can  hardly  believe  so.  At  least  it  is  not 
so  with  me,  and,  even  though  the  time 
may  come  when  I  shall  no  longer  be  able 
to  enjoy  the  uses  of  these  dear  old  friends 
with  the  old-time  enthusiasm,  I  should  still 
regard  them  with  that  tender  reverence 
which  in  his  age  the  poet  Longfellow  ex 
pressed  when  looking  round  upon  his  be 
loved  books : 

Sadly  as  some  old  mediaeval  knight 

Gazed  at  the  arms  he  could  no  longer  wield  — 
The  sword  two-handed  and  the  shining  shield 

Suspended  in  the  hall  and  full  in  sight, 

While  secret  longings  for  the  lost  delight 
Of  tourney  or  adventure  in  the  field 
Came  over  him,  and  tears  but  half  concealed 

Trembled  and  fell  upon  his  beard  of  white; 

So  I  behold  these  books  upon  their  shelf, 
My  ornaments  and  arms  of  other  days; 
Not  wholly  useless,  though  no  longer  used, 

For  they  remind  me  of  my  other  self, 
Younger  and  stronger,  and  the  pleasant  ways 
In  which  I  walked,  now  clouded  and  confused. 

197 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

If  my  friend  O'Rell's  theory  be  true,  how 
barren  would  be  Age !  Lord  Bacon  tells  us 
in  his  "  Apothegms  "  that  Alonzo  of  Aragon 
was  wont  to  say,  in  commendation  of  Age, 
that  Age  appeared  to  be  best  in  four  things: 
Old  wood  best  to  burn;  old  wine  to  drink; 
old  friends  to  trust;  and  old  authors  to  read. 
Sir  John  Davys  recalls  that  "a  French  writer 
(whom  I  love  well)  speaks  of  three  kinds  of 
companions:  Men,  women  and  books,"  and 
my  revered  and  beloved  poet-friend,  Richard 
Henry  Stoddard,  has  wrought  out  this  senti 
ment  in  a  poem  of  exceeding  beauty,  of  which 
the  concluding  stanza  runs  in  this  wise: 

Better  than  men  and  women,  friend, 

That  are  dust,  though  dear  in  our  joy  and  pain, 
Are  the  books  their  cunning  hands  have  penned, 

For  they  depart,  but  the  books  remain; 
Through  these  they  speak  to  us  what  was  best 

In  the  loving  heart  and  the  noble  mind; 
All  their  royal  souls  possessed 

Belongs  forever  to  all  mankind! 
When  others  fail  him,  the  wise  man  looks 
To  the  sure  companionship  of  books. 

If  ever,  O  honest  friends  of  mine,  I  should 
forget  you  or  weary  of  your  companionship, 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

whither  would  depart  the  memories  and  the 
associations  with  which  each  of  you  is  hal 
lowed!  Would  ever  the  modest  flowers  of 
spring-time,  budding  in  pathways  where  I 
no  longer  wander,  recall  to  my  failing  sight 
the  vernal  beauty  of  the  Puritan  maid,  Cap 
tivity  ?  In  what  reverie  of  summer-time 
should  I  feel  again  the  graciousness  of  thy 
presence,  Yseult  ? 

And  Fanchonette  — sweet,  timid  little  Fan- 
chonette!  would  ever  thy  ghost  come  back 
from  out  those  years  away  off  yonder  ?  Be 
hushed,  my  Beranger,  fora  moment;  another 
song  hath  awakened  softly  responsive  echoes 
in  my  heart!  It  is  a  song  of  Fanchonette: 

In  vain,  in  vain;  we  meet  no  more, 

Nor  dream  what  fates  befall; 
And  long  upon  the  stranger's  shore 

My  voice  on  thee  may  call, 
When  years  have  clothed  the  line  in  moss 

That  tells  thy  name  and  days, 
And  withered,  on  thy  simple  cross, 

The  wreaths  of  Pere  la  Chaise! 


199 


* 

€fje  a^rtabp  calfefc  tfatafogttte 


XVI 
THE   MALADY   CALLED  CATALOGITIS 

JUDGE  METHUEN  tells  me  that  one  of  the 
most  pleasing  delusions  he  has  experi 
enced  in  his  long  and  active  career  as  a  bib 
liomaniac  is  that  which  is  born  of  the  cata 
logue  habit.  Presuming  that  there  are  among 
my  readers  many  laymen, —  for  I  preach  sal 
vation  to  the  heathen,— I  will  explain  for 
their  information  that  the  catalogue  habit, 
so  called,  is  a  practice  to  which  the  con 
firmed  lover  of  books  is  likely  to  become 
addicted.  It  is  a  custom  of  many  publish 
ers  and  dealers  to  publish  and  to  disseminate 
at  certain  periods  lists  of  their  wares,  in  the 
hope  of  thereby  enticing  readers  to  buy  those 
wares. 

By  what  means  these  crafty  tradesmen  se 
cure  the  names  of  their  prospective  victims  I 
cannot  say,  but  this  I  know  full  well  —  that 
203 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

there  seems  not  to  be  a  book-lover  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  I  care  not  how  remote  or 
how  secret  his  habitation  may  be,  that  these 
dealers  do  not  presently  find  him  out  and 
overwhelm  him  with  their  delightful  temp 
tations. 

I  have  been  told  that  among  booksellers 
there  exists  a  secret  league  which  provides 
for  the  interchange  of  confidences;  so  that 
when  a  new  customer  enters  a  shop  in  the 
Fulham  road  or  in  Oxford  street  or  along  the 
quays  of  Paris,  or  it  matters  not  where  (so 
long  as  the  object  of  his  inquiry  be  a  book), 
within  the  space  of  a  month  that  man's 
name  and  place  of  residence  are  reported  to 
and  entered  in  the  address  list  of  every  other 
bookseller  in  Christendom,  and  forthwith 
and  forever  after  the  catalogues  and  price- 
lists  and  bulletins  of  publishers  and  dealers 
in  every  part  of  the  world  are  pelted  at  him 
through  the  unerring  processes  of  the  mails. 

Judge  Methuen  has  been  a  victim  (a  pleas 
ant  victim)  to  the  catalogue  habit  for  the 
last  forty  years,  and  he  has  declared  that  if 
all  the  catalogues  sent  to  and  read  by  him  in 
that  space  of  time  were  gathered  together  in 
204 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

a  heap  they  would  make  a  pile  bigger  than 
Pike's  Peak,  and  a  thousandfold  more  in 
teresting.  I  myself  have  been  a  famous 
reader  of  catalogues,  and  1  can  testify  that 
the  habit  has  possessed  me  of  remarkable  de 
lusions,  the  most  conspicuous  of  which  is 
that  which  produces  within  me  the  convic 
tion  that  a  book  is  as  good  as  mine  as  soon 
as  I  have  met  with  its  title  in  a  catalogue, 
and  set  an  X  over  against  it  in  pencil. 

I  recall  that  on  one  occasion  I  was  discuss 
ing  with  Judge  Methuen  and  Dr.  O'Rell  the 
attempted  escapes  of  Charles  I.  from  Caris- 
brooke  Castle ;  a  point  of  difference  having 
arisen,  I  said:  ''Gentlemen,  I  will  refer  to 
Hillier's  'Narrative,'  and  I  doubt  not  that 
my  argument  will  be  sustained  by  that  au 
thority." 

It  was  vastly  easier,  however,  to  cite  Hil- 
lier  than  it  was  to  find  him.  For  three  days 
1  searched  in  my  library,  and  tumbled  my 
books  about  in  that  confusion  which  results 
from  undue  eagerness;  't  was  all  in  vain; 
neither  hide  nor  hair  of  the  desired  volume 
could  I  discover.  It  finally  occurred  to  me 
that  I  must  have  lent  the  book  to  somebody, 
205 


THE   LOVE    AFFAIRS   OF 

and  then  again  I  felt  sure  that  it  had  been 
stolen. 

No  tidings  of  the  missing  volume  came  to 
me,  and  I  had  almost  forgotten  the  incident 
when  one  evening  (it  was  fully  two  years 
after  my  discussion  with  my  cronies)  I  came 
upon,  in  one  of  the  drawers  of  my  oak  chest, 
a  Sotheran  catalogue  of  May,  1871.  By  the 
merest  chance  I  opened  it,  and  as  luck  would 
have  it,  I  opened  it  at  the  very  page  upon 
which  appeared  this  item : 

"Hillier  (G.)  'Narrative  of  the  Attempted 
Escapes  of  Charles  the  First  from  Carisbrooke 
Castle';  cr.  8vo,  1852,  cloth,  3/6." 

Against  this  item  appeared  a  cross  in  my 
chirography,  and  I  saw  at  a  glance  that  this 
was  my  long-lost  Hillier!  I  had  meant  to 
buy  it,  and  had  marked  it  for  purchase;  but 
with  the  determination  and  that  pencilled 
cross  the  transaction  had  ended.  Yet,  hav 
ing  resolved  to  buy  it  had  served  me  almost 
as  effectively  as  though  I  had  actually  bought 
it;  I  thought  —  aye,  I  could  have  sworn  — 
I  had  bought  it,  simply  because  I  meant  to 
buy  it. 

"The  experience  is  not  unique,"  said 
206 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Judge  Methuen,  when  I  narrated  it  to  him  at 
our  next  meeting.  "Speaking  for  myself, 
I  can  say  that  it  is  a  confirmed  habit  with  me 
to  mark  certain  items  in  catalogues  which  1 
read,  and  then  to  go  my  way  in  the  pleasing 
conviction  that  they  are  actually  mine." 

"1  meet  with  cases  of  this  character  con 
tinually,"  said  Dr.  O'Rell.  "  The  hallucina 
tion  is  one  that  is  recognized  as  a  specific 
one  by  pathologists;  its  cure  is  quickest  ef 
fected  by  means  of  hypnotism.  Within  the 
last  year  a  lady  of  beauty  and  refinement 
came  to  me  in  serious  distress.  She  con 
fided  to  me  amid  a  copious  effusion  of  tears 
that  her  husband  was  upon  the  verge  of  in 
sanity.  Her  testimony  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  unfortunate  man  believed  himself  to  be 
possessed  of  a  large  library,  the  fact  being 
that  the  number  of  his  books  was  limited  to 
three  hundred  or  thereabouts. 

' '  Upon  inquiry  I  learned  that  N.  M.  (for  so 
I  will  call  the  victim  of  this  delusion)  made 
a  practice  of  reading  and  of  marking  book 
sellers'  catalogues;  further  investigation  de 
veloped  that  N.  M.'s  great-uncle  on  his  mo 
ther's  side  had  invented  a  flying-machine 
207 


THE  LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

that  would  not  fly,  and  that  a  half-brother 
of  his  was  the  author  of  a  pamphlet  entitled 
'  1 6  to  i ;  or  the  Poor  Man's  Vade-Mecum.' 

"  '  Madam,'  said  I,  '  it  is  clear  to  me  that 
your  husband  is  afflicted  with  catalogitis.' 

' '  At  this  the  poor  woman  went  into  hyster 
ics,  bewailing  that  she  should  have  lived  to 
see  the  object  of  her  affection  the  victim  of 
a  malady  so  grievous  as  to  require  a  Greek 
name.  When  she  became  calmer  I  explained 
to  her  that  the  malady  was  by  no  means  fatal, 
and  that  it  yielded  readily  to  treatment." 

''What,  in  plain  terms,"  asked  Judge  Me- 
thuen,  "is  catalogitis?" 

"I  will  explain  briefly,"  answered  the 
doctor.  "You  must  know  first  that  every 
perfect  human  being  is  provided  with  two 
sets  of  bowels;  he  has  physical  bowels  and 
intellectual  bowels,  the  brain  being  the  lat 
ter.  Hippocrates  (since  whose  time  the 
science  of  medicine  has  not  advanced  even 
the  two  stadia,  five  parasangs  of  Xeno- 
phon)  —  Hippocrates,  I  say,  discovered  that 
the  brain  is  subject  to  those  very  same  dis 
eases  to  which  the  other  and  inferior  bowels 
are  liable. 

208 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

"Galen  confirmed  this  discovery  and  he 
records  a  case  (Lib.  xi.,  p.  318)  wherein  there 
were  exhibited  in  the  intellectual  bowels 
symptoms  similar  to  those  we  find  in  ap 
pendicitis.  The  brain  is  wrought  into  cer 
tain  convolutions,  just  as  the  alimentary 
canal  is;  the  fourth  layer,  so  called,  contains 
elongated  groups  of  small  cells  or  nuclei, 
radiating  at  right  angles  to  its  plane,  which 
groups  present  a  distinctly  fanlike  structure. 
"Catalogitis  is  a  stoppage  of  this  fourth 
layer,  whereby  the  functions  of  the  fanlike 
structure  are  suffered  no  longer  to  cool  the 
brain,  and  whereby  also  continuity  of 
thought  is  interrupted,  just  as  continuity  of 
digestion  is  prevented  by  stoppage  of  the 
vermiform  appendix. 

"  The  learned  Professor  Biersteintrinken," 
continued  Dr.  O'Rell,  "  has  advanced  in  his 
scholarly  work  on  'Raderinderkopf  the  in 
teresting  theory  that  catalogitis  is  produced 
by  the  presence  in  the  brain  of  a  germ  which 
has  its  origin  in  the  cheap  paper  used  by 
booksellers  for  catalogue  purposes,  and 
this  theory  seems  to  have  the  approval  of 
M.  Marie-Tonsard,  the  most  famous  of  au- 
209 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

thorities  on  inebriety,  in  his  celebrated  clas 
sic  entitled  '  Un  Trait  sur Jacques-Jacques.'" 

"Did  you  effect  a  cure  in  the  case  of 
N.  M.  ?"  I  asked. 

"With  the  greatest  of  ease,"  answered 
the  doctor.  "By  means  of  hypnotism  1 
purged  his  intellectuals  of  their  hallucination, 
relieving  them  of  their  perception  of  objects 
which  have  no  reality  and  ridding  them  of 
sensations  which  have  no  corresponding  ex 
ternal  cause.  The  patient  made  a  rapid  re 
covery,  and,  although  three  months  have 
elapsed  since  his  discharge,  he  has  had  no 
return  of  the  disease." 

As  a  class  booksellers  do  not  encourage 
the  reading  of  other  booksellers'  catalogues ; 
this  is,  presumably,  because  they  do  not  care 
to  encourage  buyers  to  buy  of  other  sellers. 
My  bookseller,  who  in  all  virtues  of  head 
and  heart  excels  all  other  booksellers  I  ever 
met  with,  makes  a  scrupulous  practice  of 
destroying  the  catalogues  that  come  to  his 
shop,  lest  some  stray  copy  may  fall  into  the 
hands  of  a  mousing  book-lover  and  divert 
his  attention  to  other  hunting-grounds.  It 
is  indeed  remarkable  to  what  excess  the 

210 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

catalogue  habit  will  carry  its  victim;  the 
author  of  "Will  Shakespeare,  a  Comedy," 
has  frequently  confessed  to  me  that  it  mat 
tered  not  to  him  whether  a  catalogue  was 
twenty  years  old  —  so  long  as  it  was  a  cata 
logue  of  books  he  found  the  keenest  delight 
in  its  perusal;  I  have  often  heard  Mr.  Ham- 
lin,  the  theatre  manager,  say  that  he  pre 
ferred  old  catalogues  to  new,  for  the  reason 
that  the  bargains  to  be  met  with  in  old  cata 
logues  expired  long  ago  under  the  statute  of 
limitations. 

Judge  Methuen,  who  is  a  married  man 
and  has  therefore  had  an  excellent  opportu 
nity  to  study  the  sex,  tells  me  that  the 
wives  of  bibliomaniacs  regard  catalogues  as 
the  most  mischievous  temptations  that  can 
be  thrown  in  the  way  of  their  husbands.  I 
once  committed  the  imprudence  of  men 
tioning  the  subject  in  Mrs.  Methuen's  pres 
ence:  that  estimable  lady  gave  it  as  her 
opinion  that  there  were  plenty  of  ways  of 
spending  money  foolishly  without  having 
recourse  to  a  book-catalogue  for  suggestion. 
I  wonder  whether  Captivity  would  have  had 
this  opinion,  had  Providence  ordained  that 

211 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

we  should  walk  together  the  quiet  pathway 
of  New  England  life;  would  Yseult  always 
have  retained  the  exuberance  and  sweetness 
of  her  youth,  had  she  and  I  realized  what 
might  have  been  ?  Would  Fanchonette  al 
ways  have  sympathized  with  the  whims 
and  vagaries  of  the  restless  yet  loyal  soul 
that  hung  enraptured  on  her  singing  in  the 
Quartier  Latin  so  long  ago  that  the  memory 
of  that  song  is  like  the  memory  of  a  ghostly 
echo  now  ? 

Away  with  such  reflections!  Bring  in 
the  candles,  good  servitor,  and  range  them 
at  my  bed's  head;  sweet  avocation  awaits 
me,  for  here  I  have  a  goodly  parcel  of  cata 
logues  with  which  to  commune.  They  are 
messages  from  Methuen,  Sotheran,  Libbie, 
Irvine,  Hutt,  Davey,  Baer,  Crawford,  Bangs, 
McClurg,  Matthews,  Francis,  Bouton,  Scrib- 
ner,  Benjamin,  and  a  score  of  other  friends 
in  every  part  of  Christendom ;  they  deserve 
and  they  shall  have  my  respectful  —  nay, 
my  enthusiastic  attention.  Once  more  I 
shall  seem  to  be  in  the  old  familiar  shops 
where  treasures  abound  and  where  patient 
delving  bringeth  rich  rewards.  Egad,  what 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

a  spendthrift  1  shall  be  this  night;  pence, 
shillings,  thalers,  marks,  francs,  dollars,  sov 
ereigns —  they  are  the  same  to  me! 

Then,  after  I  have  comprehended  all  the 
treasures  within  reach,  how  sweet  shall  be 
my  dreams  of  shelves  overflowing  with  the 
wealth  of  which  my  fancy  has  possessed 
me! 

Then  shall  my  library  be  devote 

To  the  magic  of  Niddy-Noddy, 
Including  the  volumes  which  Nobody  wrote 

And  the  works  of  Everybody. 


213 


€lje 


XVII 
THE    NAPOLEONIC   RENAISSANCE 

IF  I  had  begun  collecting  Napoleonana  in  my 
youth  I  should  now  have  on  hand  a  price 
less  collection.  This  reminds  me  that  when 
I  first  came  to  Chicago  suburban  property 
along  the  North  Shore  could  be  bought  for 
five  hundred  dollars  an  acre  which  now  sells 
for  two  hundred  dollars  a  front  foot;  if  I  had 
purchased  real  estate  in  that  locality  when  1 
had  the  opportunity  forty  years  ago  I  should 
be  a  millionnaire  at  the  present  time. 

I  think  I  am  more  regretful  of  having 
neglected  the  Napoleonana  than  of  having 
missed  the  real-estate  chances,  for  since  my 
library  contains  fewer  than  two  hundred  vol 
umes  relating  to  Bonaparte  and  his  times  I  feel 
that  I  have  been  strangely  remiss  in  the  pur 
suit  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  most 
instructive  of  bibliomaniac  fads.  When  I  be- 
217 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

hold  the  remarkable  collections  of  Napoleon- 
ana  made  by  certain  friends  of  mine  I  am 
filled  with  conflicting  emotions  of  delight 
and  envy,  and  Judge  Methuen  and  1  are  wont 
to  contemplate  with  regret  the  opportunities 
we  once  had  of  throwing  all  these  modern 
collections  in  the  shade. 

When  I  speak  of  Napoleonana  I  refer  ex 
clusively  to  literature  relating  to  Napoleon ; 
the  term,  however,  is  generally  used  in  a 
broader  sense,  and  includes  every  variety  of 
object,  from  the  snuff-boxes  used  by  the  em 
peror  at  Malmaison  to  the  slippers  he  wore 
at  St.  Helena.  My  friend,  Mr.  Redding,  of 
California,  has  a  silver  knife  and  fork  that 
once  belonged  to  Bonaparte,  and  Mr.  Mills, 
another  friend  of  mine,  has  the  neckerchief 
which  Napoleon  wore  on  the  field  of  Water 
loo.  In  Le  Blanc's  little  treatise  upon  the 
art  of  tying  the  cravat  it  is  recorded  that 
Napoleon  generally  wore  a  black  silk  cravat, 
as  was  remarked  at  Wagram,  Lodi,  Ma- 
rengo  and  Austerlitz.  "But  at  Waterloo," 
says  Le  Blanc,  "it  was  observed  that,  con 
trary  to  his  usual  custom,  he  wore  a  white 
handkerchief  with  a  flowing  bow,  although 
218 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

the  day  previous  he  appeared  in  his  black 
cravat." 

I  remember  to  have  seen  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  Melville  E.  Stone  a  finger-ring,  which, 
having  been  brought  by  an  old  French  sol 
dier  to  New  Orleans,  ultimately  found  its 
way  to  a  pawn-shop.  This  bauble  was  of 
gold,  and  at  two  opposite  points  upon  its 
outer  surface  appeared  a  Napoleonic  "N," 
done  in  black  enamel;  by  pressing  upon  one 
of  these  Ns  a  secret  spring  was  operated, 
the  top  of  the  ring  flew  back,  and  a  tiny 
gold  figure  of  the  Little  Corporal  stood  up, 
to  the  astonishment  and  admiration  of  the 
beholder. 

Another  curious  Napoleonic  souvenir  in 
Mr.  Stone's  motley  collection  is  a  cotton  print 
handkerchief,  upon  which  are  recorded  scenes 
from  the  career  of  the  emperor;  the  thing 
must  have  been  of  English  manufacture,  for 
only  an  Englishman  (inspired  by  that  fear 
and  that  hatred  of  Bonaparte  which  only 
Englishmen  had)  could  have  devised  this 
atrocious  libel.  One  has  to  read  the  literature 
current  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  century  in 
order  to  get  a  correct  idea  of  the  terror  with 
219 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS   OF 

which  Bonaparte  filled  his  enemies,  and  this 
literature  is  so  extensive  that  it  seems  an  im 
possibility  that  anything  like  a  complete  col 
lection  should  be  got  together;  to  say  nothing 
of  the  histories,  the  biographies,  the  volumes 
of  reminiscence  and  the  books  of  criticism 
which  the  career  of  the  Corsican  inspired, 
there  are  Napoleon  dream-books,  Napoleon 
song-books,  Napoleon  chap-books,  etc.,  etc., 
beyond  the  capability  of  enumeration. 

The  English  were  particularly  active  in 
disseminating  libels  upon  Napoleon;  they 
charged  him  in  their  books  and  pamphlets 
with  murder,  arson,  incest,  treason,  treach 
ery,  cowardice,  seduction,  hypocrisy,  avar 
ice,  robbery,  ingratitude,  and  jealousy;  they 
said  that  he  poisoned  his  sick  soldiers,  that 
he  was  the  father  of  Hortense's  child,  that 
he  committed  the  most  atrocious  cruelties  in 
Egypt  and  Italy,  that  he  married  Barras'  dis 
carded  mistress,  that  he  was  afflicted  with 
a  loathsome  disease,  that  he  murdered  the 
Due  d'Enghien  and  officers  in  his  own  army 
of  whom  he  was  jealous,  that  he  was  crimi 
nally  intimate  with  his  own  sisters — in  short, 
there  was  no  crime,  however  revolting,  with 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

which  these  calumniators  were  not  hasty  to 
charge  the  emperor. 

This  same  vindictive  hatred  was  visited 
also  upon  all  associated  with  Bonaparte  in 
the  conduct  of  affairs  at  that  time.  Murat 
was  "a  brute  and  a  thief";  Josephine,  Hor- 
tense,  Pauline,  and  Mme.  Letitia  were  courte 
sans;  Berthier  was  a  shuffling,  time-serving 
lackey  and  tool;  Augereau  was  a  bastard, 
a  spy,  a  robber,  and  a  murderer;  Fouche 
was  the  incarnation  of  every  vice;  Lucien 
Bonaparte  was  a  roue  and  a  marplot;  Cam- 
baceres  was  a  debauchee ;  Lannes  was  a  thief, 
brigand,  and  a  poisoner;  Talleyrand  and  Bar- 
ras  were  —  well,  what  evil  was  told  of  them 
has  yet  to  be  disproved.  But  you  would 
gather  from  contemporaneous  English  pub 
lications  that  Bonaparte  and  his  associates 
were  veritable  fiends  from  hell  sent  to  scourge 
civilization.  These  books  are  so  strangely 
curious  that  we  find  it  hard  to  classify  them ; 
we  cannot  call  them  history,  and  they  are 
too  truculent  to  pass  for  humor;  yet  they 
occupy  a  distinct  and  important  place  among 
Napoleonana. 

Until  William  Hazlitt's  life  of  Bonaparte 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

appeared  we  had  no  English  treatment  of  Bo 
naparte  that  was  in  any  sense  fair,  and,  by  the 
way,  Hazlitt's  work  is  the  only  one  in  English 
I  know  of  which  gives  the  will  of  Bonaparte, 
an  exceedingly  interesting  document. 

For  a  good  many  years  I  held  the  char 
acter  of  Napoleon  in  light  esteem,  for  the 
reason  that  he  had  but  small  regard  for 
books.  Recent  revelations,  however,  made 
to  me  by  Dr.  O'Rell  (grandnephew  of  ''Torn 
Burke  of  Ours  "),  have  served  to  dissipate  that 
prejudice,  and  I  question  not  that  I  shall  duly 
become  as  ardent  a  worshipper  of  the  Corsi- 
can  as  my  doctor  himself  is.  Dr.  O'Rell  tells 
me  —  and  his  declarations  are  corroborated 
by  Frederic  Masson  and  other  authorities  — 
that  Bonaparte  was  a  lover  and  a  collector  of 
books,  and  that  he  contributed  largely  to  the 
dignity  and  the  glorification  of  literature  by 
publishing  a  large  number  of  volumes  in  the 
highest  style  of  the  art. 

The  one  department  of  literature  for  which 
he  seems  to  have  had  no  liking  was  fiction. 
Novels  of  all  kinds  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
tossing  into  the  fire.  He  was  a  prodigious 
buyer  of  books,  and  those  which  he  read 

222 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

were  invariably  stamped  on  the  outer  cover 
with  the  imperial  arms;  at  St.  Helena  his  li 
brary  stamp  was  merely  a  seal  upon  which 
ink  was  smeared. 

Napoleon  cared  little  for  fine  bindings,  yet 
he  knew  their  value,  and  whenever  a  presen 
tation  copy  was  to  be  bound  he  required  that 
it  be  bound  handsomely.  The  books  in  his 
own  library  were  invariably  bound  "in  calf 
of  indifferent  quality,"  and  he  was  wont, 
while  reading  a  book,  to  fill  the  margin  with 
comments  in  pencil.  Wherever  he  went  he 
took  a  library  of  books  with  him,  and  these 
volumes  he  had  deprived  of  all  superfluous 
margin,  so  as  to  save  weight  and  space.  Not 
infrequently  when  hampered  by  the  rapid 
growth  of  this  travelling  library  he  would  toss 
the  "overflow"  of  books  out  of  his  carriage 
window,  and  it  was  his  custom  (I  shudder 
to  record  it!)  to  separate  the  leaves  of  pam 
phlets,  magazines,  and  volumes  by  running 
his  finger  between  them,  thereby  invariably 
tearing  the  pages  in  shocking  wise. 

In  the  arrangement  of  his  library  Napoleon 
observed  that  exacting  method  which  was 
characteristic  of  him  in  other  employments 
223 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

and  avocations.  Each  book  had  its  particular 
place  in  a  special  case,  and  Napoleon  knew 
his  library  so  well  that  he  could  at  any  mo 
ment  place  his  hand  upon  any  volume  he 
desired.  The  libraries  at  his  palaces  he  had 
arranged  exactly  as  the  library  at  Malmaison 
was,  and  never  was  one  book  borrowed  from 
one  to  serve  in  another.  It  is  narrated  of  him 
that  if  ever  a  volume  was  missing  Napoleon 
would  describe  its  size  and  the  color  of  its 
binding  to  the  librarian,  and  would  point  out 
the  place  where  it  might  have  been  wrongly 
put  and  the  case  where  it  properly  belonged. 
If  any  one  question  the  greatness  of  this 
man  let  him  explain  if  he  can  why  civiliza 
tion's  interest  in  Napoleon  increases  as  time 
rolls  on.  Why  is  it  that  we  are  curious  to 
know  all  about  him  —  that  we  have  gratifi 
cation  in  hearing  tell  of  his  minutest  habits, 
his  moods,  his  whims,  his  practices,  his  pre 
judices  ?  Why  is  it  that  even  those  who 
hated  him  and  who  denied  his  genius  have 
felt  called  upon  to  record  in  ponderous  tomes 
their  reminiscences  of  him  and  his  deeds  ? 
Princes,  generals,  lords,  courtiers,  poets, 
painters,  priests,  plebeians  —  all  have  vied 
224 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

with  one  another  in  answering  humanity's 
demand  for  more  and  more  and  ever  more 
about  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

I  think  that  the  supply  will,  like  the  de 
mand,  never  be  exhausted.  The  women  of 
the  court  have  supplied  us  with  their  mem 
oirs;  so  have  the  diplomats  of  that  period; 
so  have  the  wives  of  his  generals;  so  have 
the  Tom-Dick-and-Harry  spectators  of  those 
kaleidoscopic  scenes;  so  have  his  keepers  in 
exile;  so  has  his  barber.  The  chambermaids 
will  be  heard  from  in  good  time,  and  the 
hostlers,  and  the  scullions.  Already  there  are 
rumors  that  we  are  soon  to  be  regaled  with 
Memoirs  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  by  the 
Lady  who  knew  the  Tailor  who  Once  Sewed 
a  Button  on  the  Emperor's  Coat,  edited  by 
her  loving  grandson,  the  Due  de  Bunco. 

Without  doubt  many  of  those  who  read 
these  lines  will  live  to  see  the  time  when 
memoirs  of  Napoleon  will  be  offered  by  "  a 
gentleman  who  purchased  a  collection  of 
Napoleon  spoons  in  1899"  ;  doubtless,  too, 
the  book  will  be  hailed  with  satisfaction,  for 
this  Napoleonic  enthusiasm  increases  as  time 
wears  on. 

225 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Curious,  is  it  not,  that  no  calm,  judicial 
study  of  this  man's  character  and  exploits 
is  received  with  favor?  He  who  treats  of 
the  subject  must  be  either  a  hater  or  an 
adorer  of  Napoleon;  his  blood  must  be  hot 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  rage  or  of  love. 

To  the  human  eye  there  appears  in  space 
a  luminous  sphere  that  in  its  appointed  path 
goes  on  unceasingly.  The  wise  men  are" 
not  agreed  whether  this  apparition  is  merely 
of  gaseous  composition  or  is  a  solid  body 
supplied  extraneously  with  heat  and  lumi 
nosity,  inexhaustibly;  some  argue  that  its 
existence  will  be  limited  to  the  period  of  one 
thousand,  or  five  hundred  thousand,  or  one 
million  years;  others  declare  that  it  will  roll 
on  until  the  end  of  time.  Perhaps  the  nature 
of  that  luminous  sphere  will  never  be  truly 
known  to  mankind;  yet  with  calm  dignity 
it  moves  in  its  appointed  path  among  the 
planets  and  the  stars  of  the  universe,  its 
fires  unabated,  its  luminosity  undimmed. 

Even  so  the  great  Corsican,  scrutinized  of 
all  human  eyes,  passes  along  the  aisle  of  Time 
enveloped  in   the  impenetrable  mystery  of 
enthusiasm,  genius,  and  splendor. 
226 


XVIII 
MY  WORKSHOP  AND  OTHERS 

The  women-folk  are  few  up  there, 

For 't  were  not  fair,  you  know, 
That  they  our  heavenly  bliss  should  share 

Who  vex  us  here  below ! 
The  few  are  those  who  have  been  kind 

To  husbands  such  as  we : 
They  knew  our  fads  and  did  n't  mind — 

Says  Dibdin's  ghost  to  me. 

IT  has  never  been  explained  to  my  satis 
faction  why  women,  as  a  class,  are  the 
enemies  of  books,  and  are  particularly  hostile 
to  bibliomania.  The  exceptions  met  with 
now  and  then  simply  prove  the  rule.  Judge 
Methuen  declares  that  bibliophobia  is  but 
one  phase  of  jealousy;  that  one's  wife  hates 
one's  books  because  she  fears  that  her 
husband  is  in  love,  or  is  going  to  be  in 
love,  with  those  companions  of  his  student 
229 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

hours.  If,  instead  of  being  folios,  quartos, 
octavos,  and  the  like,  the  Judge's  books 
were  buxom,  blithe  maidens,  his  wife  could 
hardly  be  more  jealous  of  the  Judge's  atten 
tions  to  them  than  she  is  under  existing  cir 
cumstances.  On  one  occasion,  having  found 
the  Judge  on  two  successive  afternoons  sit 
ting  alone  in  the  library  with  Pliny  in  his 
lap,  this  spirited  lady  snatched  the  insidious 
volume  from  her  husband's  embraces  and 
locked  it  up  in  one  of  the  kitchen  pantries; 
nor  did  she  release  the  object  of  her  displea 
sure  until  the  Judge  had  promised  solemnly 
to  be  more  circumspect  in  the  future,  and 
had  further  mollified  his  wife's  anger  by 
bringing  home  a  new  silk  dress  and  a  bon 
net  of  exceptional  loveliness. 

Other  instances  of  a  similar  character  have 
demonstrated  that  Mrs.  Methuen  regards 
with  implacable  antipathy  the  volumes  upon 
which  my  learned  and  ingenious  friend  would 
fain  lavish  the  superabundance  of  his  affec 
tion.  Many  years  ago  the  Judge  was  com 
pelled  to  resort  to  every  kind  of  artifice  in 
order  to  sneak  new  books  into  his  house, 
and  had  he  not  been  imbued  with  the  true 
230 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

afflatus  of  bibliomania  he  would  long  ago 
have  broken  down  under  the  heartless  tyr 
anny  of  his  vindictive  spouse. 

When  I  look  around  me  and  survey  the 
persecution  to  which  book-lovers  are  sub 
jected  by  their  wives,  I  thank  the  goddess 
Fortune  that  she  has  cast  my  lot  among  the 
celibates;  indeed,  it  is  still  one  of  the  few 
serious  questions  I  have  not  yet  solved,  viz. : 
whether  a  man  can  at  the  same  time  be 
true  to  a  wife  and  to  bibliomania.  Both  are 
exacting  mistresses,  and  neither  will  tolerate 
a  rival. 

Dr.  O'Rell  has  a  theory  that  the  trouble 
with  most  wives  is  that  they  are  not  caught 
young  enough;  he  quotes  Dr.  Johnson's 
sage  remark  to  the  effect  that  "much  can 
be  made  of  a  Scotchman  if  caught  young," 
and  he  asserts  that  this  is  equally  true  of  wo 
man.  Mrs.  O'Rell  was  a  mere  girl  when 
she  wedded  with  the  doctor,  and  the  result 
of  thirty  years'  experience  and  training  is 
that  this  model  woman  sympathizes  with 
her  excellent  husband's  tastes,  and  actually 
has  a  feeling  of  contempt  for  other  wives 
who  have  never  heard  of  Father  Prout  and 
231 


THE   LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

Kit  North,  and  who  object  to  their  husbands' 
smoking  in  bed. 

I  recall  with,  what  enthusiasm  I  once  heard 
this  superior  creature  commend  the  doctor 
for  having  accepted  in  lieu  of  a  fee  a  set  of 
Calvin's  "  Institutes,"  with  copious  notes,  in 
twelve  octavo  volumes,  and  a  portfolio  of 
colored  fox-hunting  prints.  My  admiration 
for  this  model  wife  could  find  expression  in 
no  other  way;  I  jumped  from  my  chair, 
seized  her  in  my  arms,  and  imprinted  upon 
her  brow  a  fervent  but  respectful  kiss. 

It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  prettier  pic 
ture  than  that  presented  to  my  vision  as  I 
looked  in  from  the  porch  of  the  doctor's  res 
idence  upon  the  doctor's  family  gathered 
together  in  the  library  after  dinner.  The 
doctor  himself,  snuggled  down  in  a  vast 
easy-chair,  was  dividing  his  attention  be 
tween  a  brier  pipe  and  the  odes  of  Proper- 
tius;  his  wife,  beside  him  in  her  rocker, 
smiled  and  smiled  again  over  the  quaint  hu 
mor  of  Mrs.  Gaskell's  "Cranford";  upon 
yonder  settee,  Francis  Mahony  Methuen,  the 
oldest  son,  was  deep  in  the  perusal  of  Wil 
son's  " Tales  of  the  Border";  his  brother, 
232 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Russell  Lowell,  was  equally  absorbed  in  the 
pathetic  tale  of  "The  Man  without  a  Coun 
try  " ;  Letitia  Landon  Methuen,  the  daughter, 
was  quietly  sobbing  over  the  tragedy  of 
"  Evangeline ";  in  his  high  chair  sat  the 
chubby  baby  boy,  Beranger  Methuen,  crow 
ing  gleefully  over  an  illustrated  copy  of 
that  grand  old  classic,  ''Poems  for  Infant 
Minds  by  Two  Young  Persons." 

For  several  moments  I  stood  spellbound, 
regarding  with  ineffable  rapture  this  inspir 
ing  spectacle.  "  How  manifold  are  thy 
blessings,  O  Bibliomania,"  thought  I,  "and 
how  graciously  they  are  distributed  in  this 
joyous  circle,  wherein  it  is  permitted  to  see 
not  only  the  maturer  members,  but,  alas, 
the  youth  and  even  the  babes  and  sucklings 
drinking  freely  and  gratefully  at  the  fountain- 
head  of  thy  delights! " 

Dr.  O'Rell's  library  is  one  of  the  most 
charming  apartments  I  know  of.  It  looks 
out  upon  every  variety  of  scenery,  for  Dr. 
O'Rell  has  had  constructed  at  considerable 
expense  a  light  iron  framework  from  which 
are  suspended  at  different  times  cunningly 
painted  canvases  representing  landscapes 
233 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

the  "Faerie  Queen,"  Jeremy  Taylor,  and 
Ben  Jonson  occupying  close  quarters  with 
fishing-rods,  boxing-gloves,  and  tins  of  bar 
ley-sugar. 

Charles  Lamb's  favorite  workshop  was  in 
an  attic;  upon  the  walls  of  this  room  he 
and  his  sister  pasted  old  prints  and  gay  pic 
tures,  and  this  resulted  in  giving  the  place 
a  cheery  aspect.  Lamb  loved  old  books, 
old  friends,  old  times;  "  he  evades  the  pres 
ent,  he  works  at  the  future,  and  his  affec 
tions  revert  to  and  settle  on  the  past," — so 
says  Hazlitt.  His  favorite  books  seem  to 
have  been  Bunyan's  "  Holy  War,"  Browne's 
"Urn-Burial,"  Burton's  "Anatomy  of  Mel 
ancholy,"  Fuller's  "  Worthies,"  and  Taylor's 
"  Holy  Living  and  Dying."  Thomas  West- 
wood  tells  us  that  there  were  few  modern 
volumes  in  his  library,  it  being  his  custom 
to  give  away  and  throw  away  (as  the  same 
writer  asserts)  presentation  copies  of  con 
temporaneous  literature.  Says  Barry  Corn 
wall:  "Lamb's  pleasures  lay  amongst  the 
books  of  the  old  English  writers,"  and  Lamb 
himself  uttered  these  memorable  words :  "I 
cannot  sit  and  think  —  books  think  for  me." 
238 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

Wordsworth,  on  the  other  hand,  cared  lit 
tle  for  books;  his  library  was  a  small  one, 
embracing  hardly  more  than  five  hundred 
volumes.  He  drew  his  inspiration  not  from 
books,  but  from  Nature.  From  all  that  I 
have  heard  of  him  I  judge  him  to  have  been 
a  very  dull  man.  Allibone  relates  of  him 
that  he  once  remarked  that  he  did  not  con 
sider  himself  a  witty  poet.  ' '  Indeed, "  quoth 
he,  "  I  don't  think  I  ever  was  witty  but  once 
in  my  life." 

His  friends  urged  him  to  tell  them  about 
it.  After  some  hesitation,  he  said :  "Well, 
I  will  tell  you.  I  was  standing  some  time 
ago  at  the  entrance  of  Rydal  Mount.  A 
man  accosted  me  with  the  question :  '  Pray, 
sir,  have  you  seen  my  wife  pass  by  ? ' 
Whereupon  I  retorted,  'Why,  my  good 
friend,  I  did  n't  know  till  this  moment  that 
you  had  a  wife.' ' 

Illustrative  of  Wordsworth's  vanity,  it  is 
told  that  when  it  was  reported  that  the  next 
Waverley  novel  was  to  be  "  Rob  Roy,"  the 
poet  took  down  his  "Ballads"  and  read  to 
the  company  "Rob  Roy's  Grave."  Then 
he  said  gravely:  "I  do  not  know  what 
239 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

would  lock  the  door  of  that  room  and  be 
take  himself  toother  quarters,  which  in  turn 
would  eventually  become  quite  as  littered 
up,  cluttered  up,  and  impassable  as  the  first 
rooms. 

From  all  that  can  be  gathered  upon  the 
subject  it  would  appear  that  De  Quincey 
was  careless  in  his  treatment  of  books;  1 
have  read  somewhere  (but  I  forget  where) 
that  he  used  his  forefinger  as  a  paper-cutter 
and  that  he  did  not  hesitate  to  mutilate  old 
folios  which  he  borrowed.  But  he  was  ex 
traordinarily  tender  with  his  manuscripts; 
and  he  was  wont  to  carry  in  his  pockets  a 
soft  brush  with  which  he  used  to  dust  off 
his  manuscripts  most  carefully  before  hand 
ing  them  to  the  publisher. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  was  similarly  careful  with 
his  books,  and  he  used,  for  purposes  of  dust 
ing  them,  the  end  of  a  fox's  tail  set  in  a 
handle  of  silver.  Scott,  was,  however,  par 
ticular  and  systematic  in  the  arrangement  of 
his  books, and  his  work-room,  with  its  choice 
bric-a-brac  and  its  interesting  collection  of 
pictures  and  framed  letters,  was  a  veritable 
paradise  to  the  visiting  book-lover  and  curio- 
236 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

lover.  He  was  as  fond  of  early  rising  as 
Francis  Jeffrey  was  averse  to  it,  and  both 
these  eminent  men  were  strongly  attached 
to  animal  pets.  Jeffrey  particularly  affected 
an  aged  and  garrulous  parrot  and  an  equally 
disreputable  little  dog.  Scott  was  so  stanch 
a  friend  of  dogs  that  wherever  he  went  he 
was  accompanied  by  one  or  two — some 
times  by  a  whole  kennel — of  these  faithful 
brutes. 

In  Mrs.  Gordon's  noble '  'Memoirs"  we  have 
a  vivid  picture  of  Professor  Wilson's  work 
room.  All  was  confusion  there:  "  his  room 
was  a  strange  mixture  of  what  may  be 
called  order  and  untidiness,  for  there  was 
not  a  scrap  of  paper  or  a  book  that  his 
hand  could  not  light  upon  in  a  moment, 
while  to  the  casual  eye,  in  search  of  discov 
ery,  it  would  appear  chaos."  Wilson  had 
no  love  for  fine  furniture,  and  he  seems  to 
have  crowded  his  books  together  without 
regard  to  any  system  of  classification.  He 
had  a  habit  of  mixing  his  books  around 
with  fishing-tackle,  and  his  charming  biog 
rapher  tells  us  it  was  no  uncommon  thing 
to  find  the  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  "  Boxiana," 
237 


THE  LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

and  marines  corresponding  to  the  most 
whimsical  fancy. 

In  the  dead  of  winter,  the  doctor  often 
has  a  desire  to  look  out  upon  a  cheery  land 
scape;  thereupon,  by  a  simple  manipulation 
of  a  keyboard,  there  is  unrolled  a  panorama 
of  velvety  hillsides  and  flowery  meads,  of 
grazing  sheep,  and  of  piping  rustics;  so 
natural  is  the  spectacle  that  one  can  almost 
hear  the  music  of  the  reeds,  and  fancy  him 
self  in  Arcadia.  If  in  midsummer  the  heat 
is  oppressive  and  life  seems  burthensome, 
forthwith  another  canvas  is  outspread,  and 
the  glories  of  the  Alps  appear,  or  a  stretch 
of  blue  sea,  or  a  corner  of  a  primeval  forest 

So  there  is  an  outlook  for  every  mood,  and 
1  doubt  not  that  this  ingenious  provision 
contributes  potently  towards  promoting  bib 
liomaniac  harmony  and  prosperity  in  my 
friend's  household.  It  is  true  that  I  myself 
am  not  susceptible  to  external  influences 
when  once  I  am  surrounded  by  books;  I  do 
not  care  a  fig  whether  my  library  overlooks 
a  garden  or  a  desert;  give  me  my  dear  com 
panions  in  their  dress  of  leather,  cloth,  or 
boards,  and  it  matters  not  to  me  whether 
234 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

God  sends  storm  or  sunshine,  flowers  or 
hail,  light  or  darkness,  noise  or  calm.  Yet 
I  know  and  admit  that  environment  means 
much  to  most  people,  and  I  do  most  heartily 
applaud  Dr.  O'Rell's  versatile  device. 

I  have  always  thought  that  De  Quincey's 
workshop  would  have  given  me  great  de 
light.  The  particular  thing  that  excited  De 
Quincey's  choler  was  interference  with  his 
books  and  manuscripts,  which  he  piled  atop 
of  one  another  upon  the  floor  and  over  his 
desk,  until  at  last  there  would  be  but  a  nar 
row  little  pathway  from  the  desk  to  the  fire 
place  and  from  the  fireplace  to  the  door; 
and  his  writing-table  —  gracious!  what  a 
Pelion  upon  Ossa  of  confusion  it  must  have 
been ! 

Yet  De  Quincey  insisted  that  he  knew 
"just  where  everything  was,"  and  he  merely 
exacted  that  the  servants  attempt  no  such 
vandalism  as  "cleaning  up"  in  his  work 
shop.  Of  course  there  would  presently 
come  a  time  when  there  was  no  more  room 
on  the  table  and  when  the  little  pathway 
to  the  fireplace  and  the  door  would  be  no 
longer  visible;  then,  with  a  sigh,  De  Quincey 
235 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

more  Mr.  Scott  can  have  to  say  on  the 
subject." 

Wordsworth  and  Dickens  disliked  each 
other  cordially.  Having  been  asked  his 
opinion  of  the  young  novelist,  Wordsworth 
answered:  "Why,  I  'm  not  much  given  to 
turn  critic  on  people  I  meet;  but,  as  you 
ask  me,  I  will  cordially  avow  that  I  thought 
him  a  very  talkative  young  person  —  but 
I  dare  say  he  may  be  very  clever.  Mind,  I 
don't  want  to  say  a  word  against  him,  for 
I  have  never  read  a  line  he  has  written." 

The  same  inquirer  subsequently  asked 
Dickens  how  he  liked  Wordsworth. 

"Like  him!"  roared  Dickens,  "not  at  all; 
he  is  a  dreadful  Old  Ass! " 


240 


SDeBt  to 


XIX 
OUR   DEBT   TO   MONKISH    MEN 

WHERE  one  has  the  time  and  the  money 
to  devote  to  the  collection  of  missals 
and  illuminated  books,  the  avocation  must 
be  a  very  delightful  one.  I  never  look  upon 
a  missal  or  upon  a  bit  of  antique  illumination 
that  I  do  not  invest  that  object  with  a  cer 
tain  poetic  romance,  and  I  picture  to  myself 
long  lines  of  monkish  men  bending  over 
their  tasks,  and  applying  themselves  with 
pious  enthusiasm  thereto.  We  should  not 
flatter  ourselves  that  the  enjoyment  of  the 
delights  of  bibliomania  was  reserved  to  one 
time  and  generation ;  a  greater  than  any  of  us 
lived  many  centuries  ago,  and  went  his  bib- 
liomaniacal  way,  gathering  together  trea 
sures  from  every  quarter,  and  diffusing  every 
where  a  veneration  and  love  for  books. 
243 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Richard  de  Bury  was  the  king,  if  not  the 
father,  of  bibliomaniacs;  his  immortal  work 
reveals  to  us  that  long  before  the  invention 
of  printing  men  were  tormented  and  enrap 
tured  by  those  very  same  desires,  envies, 
jealousies,  greeds,  enthusiasms,  and  pas 
sions  which  possess  and  control  biblioma 
niacs  at  the  present  time.  That  vanity  was 
sometimes  the  controlling  passion  with  the 
early  collectors  is  evidenced  in  a  passage  in 
Barclay's  satire,  "  The  Ship  of  Fools  " ;  there 
are  the  stanzas  which  apply  so  neatly  to  cer 
tain  people  I  know  that  sometimes  I  actually 
suspect  that  Barclay's  prophetic  eye  must 
have  had  these  nineteenth-century  charlatans 
in  view. 

But  yet  I  have  them  in  great  reverence 
And  honor,  saving  them  from  filth  and  ordure 

By  often  brushing  and  much  diligence. 
Full  goodly  bound  in  pleasant  coverture 
Of  damask,  satin,  or  else  of  velvet  pure, 

I  keep  them  sure,  fearing  lest  they  should  be  lost, 

For  in  them  is  the  cunning  wherein  I  me  boast. 

But  if  it  fortune  that  any  learned  man 

Within  my  house  fall  to  disputation, 
I  draw  the  curtains  to  show  my  books  them, 
244 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

That  they  of  my  cunning  should  make  probation; 

I  love  not  to  fall  into  alternation, 
And  while  they  come,  my  books  I  turn  and  wind, 
For  all  is  in  them,  and  nothing  in  my  mind. 

Richard  de  Bury  had  exceptional  opportu 
nities  for  gratify  ing  his  bibliomaniac  passions. 
He-  was  chancellor  and  treasurer  of  Edward 
III.,  and  his  official  position  gained  him  ac 
cess  to  public  and  private  libraries  and  to  the 
society  of  literary  men.  Moreover,  when  it 
became  known  that  he  was  fond  of  such 
things,  people  from  every  quarter  sent  him 
and  brought  him  old  books;  it  may  be  that 
they  hoped  in  this  wise  to  court  his  official 
favor,  or  perhaps  they  were  prompted  by 
the  less  selfish  motive  of  gladdening  the  bib 
liomaniac  soul. 

"The  flying  fame  of  our  love,"  says  de 
Bury,  "had  already  spread  in  all  directions, 
and  it  was  reported  not  only  that  we  had  a 
longing  desire  for  books,  and  especially  for 
old  ones,  but  that  any  one  could  more  easily 
obtain  our  favors  by  quartos  than  by  money. 
Wherefore,  when  supported  by  the  bounty 
of  the  aforesaid  prince  of  worthy  memory, 
we  were  enabled  to  oppose  or  advance,  to 
245 


THE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  OF 

appoint  or  to  discharge ;  crazy  quartos  and  tot 
tering  folios,  precious  however  in  our  sight 
as  in  our  affections,  flowed  in  most  rapidly 
from  the  great  and  the  small,  instead  of  new 
year's  gifts  and  remunerations,  and  instead 
of  presents  and  jewels.  Then  the  cabinets 
of  the  most  noble  monasteries  were  opened, 
cases  were  unlocked,  caskets  were  unclasped, 
and  sleeping  volumes  which  had  slumbered 
for  long  ages  in  their  sepulchres  were  roused 
up,  and  those  that  lay  hid  in  dark  places 
were  overwhelmed  with  the  rays  of  a  new 
light.  Among  these,  as  time  served,  we 
sat  down  more  voluptuously  than  the  deli 
cate  physician  could  do  amidst  his  stores  of 
aromatics,  and  where  we  found  an  object  of 
love  we  found  also  an  assuagement." 

"If,"  says  de  Bury,  "we  would  have 
amassed  cups  of  gold  and  silver,  excellent 
horses,  or  no  mean  sums  of  money,  we  could 
in  those  days  have  laid  up  abundance  of 
wealth  for  ourselves.  But  we  regarded 
books,  not  pounds  ;  and  valued  codices 
more  than  florins,  and  preferred  paltry  pam 
phlets  to  pampered  palfreys.  On  tedious 
embassies  and  in  perilous  times,  we  carried 
246 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

about  with  us  that  fondness  for  books  which 
many  waters  could  not  extinguish." 

And  what  books  they  were  in  those  old 
days!  What  tall  folios!  What  stout  quartos! 
How  magnificent  were  the  bindings,  wrought 
often  in  silver  devices,  sometimes  in  gold, 
and  not  infrequently  in  silver  and  gold,  with 
splendid  jewels  and  precious  stones  to  add 
their  value  to  that  of  the  precious  volume 
which  they  adorned.  The  works  of  Justin, 
Seneca,  Martial,  Terence,  and  Claudian  were 
highly  popular  with  the  bibliophiles  of  early 
times ;  and  the  writings  of  Ovid,  Tully, 
Horace,  Cato,  Aristotle,  Sallust,  Hippocrates, 
Macrobius,  Augustine,  Bede,  Gregory,  Ori- 
gen,  etc.  But  for  the  veneration  and  love 
for  books  which  the  monks  of  the  mediaeval 
ages  had,  what  would  have  been  preserved 
to  us  of  the  classics  of  the  Greeks  and  the 
Romans  ? 

The  same  auspicious  fate  that  prompted 
those  bibliomaniacal  monks  to  hide  away 
manuscript  treasures  in  the  cellars  of  their 
monasteries,  inspired  Poggio  Bracciolini  sev 
eral  centuries  later  to  hunt  out  and  invade 
those  sacred  hiding-places,  and  these  quests 
247 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS  OF 

were  rewarded  with  finds  whose  value  can 
not  be  overestimated.  All  that  we  have  of 
the  histories  of  Livy  come  to  us  through 
Poggio's  industry  as  a  manuscript-hunter; 
this  same  worthy  found  and  brought  away 
from  different  monasteries  a  perfect  copy  of 
Quintilian,  a  Cicero's  oration  for  Csecina,  a 
complete  Tertullian,  a  Petronius  Arbiter,  and 
fifteen  or  twenty  other  classics  almost  as 
valuable  as  those  I  have  named.  From  Ger 
man  monasteries,  Poggio's  friend,  Nicolas  of 
Treves,  brought  away  twelve  comedies  of 
Plautus  and  a  fragment  of  Aulus  Gellius. 

Dear  as  their  pagan  books  were  to  the 
monkish  collectors,  it  was  upon  their  Bibles, 
their  psalters,  and  their  other  religious 
books  that  these  mediaeval  bibliomaniacs 
expended  their  choicest  art  and  their  most 
loving  care.  St.  Cuthbert's  "  Gospels,"  pre 
served  in  the  British  Museum,  was  written 
by  Egfrith,  a  monk,  circa  720  ;  y^thelwald 
bound  the  book  in  gold  and  precious  stones, 
and  Bilfrid,  a  hermit,  illuminated  it  by  pre 
fixing  to  each  gospel  a  beautiful  painting 
representing  one  of  the  Evangelists,  and  a 
tessellated  cross,  executed  in  a  most  elaborate 
248 


A   BIBLIOMANIAC 

manner.  Bilfrid  also  illuminated  the  large 
capital  letters  at  the  beginning  of  the  gospels. 
This  precious  volume  was  still  further  en 
riched  by  Aldred  of  Durham,  who  interlined 
it  with  a  Saxon  Gloss,  or  version  of  the  Latin 
text  of  St.  Jerome. 

"Of  the  exact  pecuniary  value  of  books 
during  the  middle  ages,"  says  Merry- 
weather,  "we  have  no  means  of  judging. 
The  few  instances  that  have  accidentally 
been  recorded  are  totally  inadequate  to  en 
able  us  to  form  an  opinion.  The  extravagant 
estimate  given  by  some  as  to  the  value  of 
books  in  those  days  is  merely  conjectural,  as 
it  necessarily  must  be  when  we  remember 
that  the  price  was  guided  by  the  accuracy 
of  the  transcription,  the  splendor  of  the  bind 
ing  (which  was  often  gorgeous  to  excess), 
and  by  the  beauty  and  richness  of  the  illu 
minations.  Many  of  the  manuscripts  of  the 
middle,  ages  are  magnificent  in  the  extreme; 
sometimes  inscribed  in  liquid  gold  on  parch 
ment  of  the  richest  purple,  and  adorned  with 
illuminations  of  exquisite  workmanship." 

With  such  a  veneration  and  love  for  books 
obtaining  in  the  cloister  and  at  the  fireside, 
249 


THE    LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

what  pathos  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  suppli 
cation  which  invited  God's  blessing  upon 
the  beloved  tomes:  "O  Lord,  send  the  vir 
tue  of  thy  Holy  Spirit  upon  these  our  books; 
that  cleansing  them  from  all  earthly  things, 
by  thy  holy  blessing,  they  may  mercifully 
enlighten  our  hearts  and  give  us  true  under 
standing;  and  grant  that  by  thy  teachings 
they  may  brightly  preserve  and  make  full 
an  abundance  of  good  works  according  to 
thy  will." 

And  what  inspiration  and  cheer  does 
every  book-lover  find  in  the  letter  which  that 
grand  old  bibliomaniac,  Alcuin,  addressed 
to  Charlemagne:  "I,  your  Flaccus,  accord 
ing  to  your  admonitions  and  good  will,  ad 
minister  to  some  in  the  house  of  St.  Martin 
the  sweets  of  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  others  I 
inebriate  with  the  study  of  ancient  wisdom ; 
and  others  I  fill  with  the  fruits  of  grammati 
cal  lore.  Many  I  seek  to  instruct  in  the  order 
of  the  stars  which  illuminate  the  glorious 
vault  of  heaven,  so  that  they  may  be  made 
ornaments  to  the  holy  church  of  God  and 
the  court  of  your  imperial  majesty;  that  the 
goodness  of  God  and  your  kindness  may  not 
250 


A  BIBLIOMANIAC 

be  altogether  unproductive  of  good.  But  in 
doing  this  I  discover  the  want  of  much,  es 
pecially  those  exquisite  books  of  scholastic 
learning  which  I  possessed  in  my  own 
country,  through  the  industry  of  my  good 
and  most  devout  master,  Egbert.  I  there 
fore  entreat  your  Excellence  to  permit  me  to 
send  into  Britain  some  of  our  youths  to  pro 
cure  those  books  which  we  so  much  desire, 
and  thus  transplant  into  France  the  flowers 
of  Britain,  that  they  may  fructify  and  per 
fume,  not  only  the  garden  at  York,  but  also 
the  Paradise  of  Tours,  and  that  we  may  say 
in  the  words  of  the  song:  '  Let  my  beloved 
come  into  his  garden  and  eat  his  pleasant 
fruit;'  and  to  the  young:  'Eat,  O  friends; 
drink,  yea,  drink  abundantly,  O  beloved ; ' 
or  exhort  in  the  words  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  : 
'  Every  one  that  thirsteth  to  come  to  the  wa 
ters,  and  ye  that  have  no  money,  come  ye, 
buy  and  eat:  yea,  come  buy  wine  and  milk, 
without  money  and  without  price.' ' 

I  was  meaning  to  have  somewhat  to  say 

about  Alcuin,  and  had  intended  to  pay  my 

respects  to  Canute,  Alfred,  the  Abbot  of  St. 

Albans,    the  Archbishop   of  Salzburg,    the 

251 


THE   LOVE   AFFAIRS   OF 

Prior  of  Dover,  and  other  mediaeval  worthies, 
whenjudge  Methuen  came  in  and  interrupted 
the  thread  of  my  meditation.  The  Judge 
brings  me  some  verses  done  recently  by  a 
poet-friend  of  his,  and  he  asks  me  to  give 
them  a  place  in  these  memoirs  as  illustrating 
the  vanity  of  human  confidence. 

One  day  I  got  a  missive 

Writ  in  a  dainty  hand, 
Which  made  my  manly  bosom 

With  vanity  expand. 
'T  was  from  a  "  young  admirer " 

Who  asked  me  would  I  mind 
Sending  her  "  favorite  poem  " 

"  In  autograph,  and  signed." 

She  craved  the  boon  so  sweetly 

That  I  had  been  a  churl 
Had  1  repulsed  the  homage 

Of  this  gentle,  timid  girl; 
With  bright  illuminations 

I  decked  the  manuscript, 
And  in  my  choicest  paints  and  inks 

My  brush  and  pen  I  dipt. 

Indeed  it  had  been  tedious 

But  that  a  flattered  smile 
Played  on  my  rugged  features 

And  eased  my  toil  the  while. 
252 


A    BIBLIOMANIAC 

I  was  assured  my  poem 
Would  fill  her  with  delight  — 

I  fancied  she  was  pretty  — 
I  knew  that  she  was  bright! 

And  for  a  spell  thereafter 

That  unknown  damsel's  face 
With  its  worshipful  expression 

Pursued  me  every  place; 
Meseemed  to  hear  her  whisper: 

"O,  thank  you,  gifted  sir, 
For  the  overwhelming  honor 

You  so  graciously  confer !  " 

But  a  catalogue  from  Benjamin's 

Disproves  what  things  meseemed- 
Dispels  with  savage  certainty 

The  flattering  dreams  I  dreamed; 
For  that  poor  "  favorite  poem," 

Done  and  signed  in  autograph, 
Is  listed  in  "  Cheap  Items  " 

At  a  dollar-and-a-half. 


253 


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